NDF and AfDB establish fund to support climate-resilient urbanisation

NDF’s Board of Directors has approved an EUR 4 million grant for the Urban & Municipal Development Fund for Africa (UMDF), a project preparatory fund to be established by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

UMDF is aimed at supporting African cities and municipalities to better manage urban growth and climate-resilient development by improving governance and quality of basic services. This aim will be achieved by preparing relevant resilient infrastructure projects, creating planning and risk management instruments, and improving the local capacity for the development and implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation activities.

The UMDF is the AfDB’s first multi-donor trust fund uniquely positioned to address urban development issues on the continent. It will directly strengthen AfDB’s Urban Development Strategy by developing a pipeline of urban projects to be financed by AfDB through its public and private sector instruments.
The UMDF will directly contribute to United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals no. 9, 11, and 13 on resilient infrastructure, sustainable cities, and climate action.

“The Urban & Municipal Development Fund for Africa could be a game changer for sustainable urban development in Africa since it will work upstream with cities on resilience to attract significant financing for follow-up investments. It will also open an opportunity to link African cities with some of the proven appropriate urban solutions in the Nordic countries, says Aage Jørgensen, Country Program Manager at NDF.

Part of the NDF grant will be used to finance a two-year technical assistance consultancy to join the UMDF team at AfDB. One of the tasks of the consultant will be to introduce suitable Nordic solutions to urban planning and climate change. This will provide an opportunity for NDF to transfer experiences from successful efforts with partners in the Mekong basin countries and Latin America. The latter is home to the successful Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI) which the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) selected as winner of the Momentum for Change Lighthouse Activity at the COP21 in Paris.

Stefan Atchia, focal point for urban development at the African Development Bank, says: “The new Cities and Urban Development Division in the AfDB will provide a platform for the Bank to provide a holistic response to Africa’s growing urbanization and the emerging challenges related to urban development issues across the continent. The UMDF will be the AfDB’s first multi-donor trust fund uniquely positioned to address urban development issues on the continent, and is expected to serve as an important financial tool for launching and developing new urban initiatives in Regional Member Countries.”