Intended Nationally Determined Contribution: Implications, Prospects and Africa’s Readiness to Contribute to Solutions

Tuesday, December 8, 2015
COP 21, Le Bourget, Paris, France  
Your Excellency, Dr. Khaled Fahmy, Minister of Environment of Egypt and President of the African Ministerial Conference on Environment,
Your Excellencies, Honourable Ministers
Honourable President and Members of the Pan-African Parliament and
African Parliamentarians
H.E. Dr. Carlos Lopez, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
Representative of the CEO of the NEPAD Panning and Coordinating Agency
Representative of the President of the African Development Bank
Representatives of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs)
Representatives of International Organizations, UN Agencies and Development Partners
Eminent Experts of the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change
Distinguished members of the Civil Society and Media Personnel
Ladies and Gentlemen

 
On behalf of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Dr. Nkozasana Dlamini Zuma, I wish to welcome you all to the Africa Day organized by Africa’s Premier institutions: the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency in collaboration with the East African Community, Ethiopia and Sudan with the support of several partner institutions.

The Africa Day side event is organized to showcase Africa’s contributions in terms of solutions to the growing challenges of climate change. As a continent, Africa has always shown its willingness in seeking for sustainable solutions to the threats posed by climate change.
It is important to stress that the Africa Day is not about lamenting the risks and challenges posed by climate change but instead to serve as an opportunity for the continent to showcase to the rest of the world solutions currently on the way to mitigate these challenges, specifically through the development of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).

The theme for the Africa Day for this year is: Intended Nationally Determined Contributions: Implications, Prospects and Africa’s Readiness to Contribute to Solutions. This is session is a unique platform that allows us to debate on the challenges, opportunities and means of implementing the INDCs in our continent.

Excellencies, the Paris Climate COP is the pinnacle of the global climate change negotiations that has its historic milestone from the African COP in Durban COP 17. It proofs the level of commitment by the global community in addressing the adverse impacts of climate change and reduction of the greenhouse gases. The discussion here in Paris is expected to address critical issues related to means of implementation and specifically to finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building in addressing mitigation and adaptation in a balanced manner, while ensuring transparency of actions and support.
It is thus critical and urgent for Africa to deliberate on the bigger picture of the expected agreement on climate change, especially on the implications and prospects for the continent’s development as stated in the various sectoral Visions such as the African Water Vision 2025, the Roadmap for the implementation of the Malabo Decision and Agriculture Transformation by 2025 and the overall Agenda 2063.

I am quite impressed with the level of participation and am optimistic that our high-caliber of speakers and panelists will do justice to the theme of the Africa Day.

I wish you all very interesting interaction and debates.

Thank you for your kind attention.