The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) (GCA.org) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire to enhance and increase the share of adaptation and resilience investments financed by the country’s forthcoming EUR 2 billion Sustainable Bond Program.

Côte d’Ivoire’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) identifies 11 sectors vulnerable to climate change and estimates the total cost of implementing adaptation action to be USD 1.76 billion.

GCA will support the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire on ESG projects identification, with a focus on climate change and adaptation related projects, through a two-phase intervention:

The immediate focus of GCA technical assistance will be on budget screening and identification of eligible budget expenditures, within the scope of the ESG Framework of Cote d’Ivoire. And in the medium to long term promote the implementation of process and tools to:

1. Classify climate change related expenditures
2. Track climate related expenditures in the national budget system (climate budget tagging), and
3. Train relevant government entities on these process and tools (including the ESG Committee).

On signing the Memorandum of Understanding, Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation noted that:

“Through this work GCA will be supporting the Government of Côte d'Ivoire to scale adaptation and resilience by leveraging the credibility, scale, momentum, and liquidity that the green bond market has achieved over the past ten years. We hope, through our Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program, other countries across the continent will follow Côte d'Ivoire’s lead so the finance is in place to implement the necessary adaptation actions to secure the future of people’s lives and livelihoods across the continent”.

His Excellency Adama Coulibaly, Honourable Minister of Economy and Finance, Republic of Côte d’Ivoire said:

“Our aim in issuing the first-ever sovereign sustainable bonds is in line with the climate policy commitment of His Excellency, President Alassane Ouattara to accelerate bold action on adaptation financing and resilience projects. Public spending alone cannot meet the adaptation finance gap, so private sector investment must scale alongside Government investments to supplement limited resources. We strongly welcome the support of Global Center on Adaptation to provide technical assistance and capacity building to perform climate public and institutional expenditure review to identify adaptation assets.”

Côte d’Ivoire has formed an ESG Committee to select projects financed by the Sustainable Bonds. The ESG Committee is led by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, specifically the Department of Public Debt and Donations (“Direction de la Dette Publique et des Dons”). It includes representatives from the Ministry of Planning and Development, the Ministry of Budget, and from a range of sectoral Ministries covering critical policies related to the Eligible ESG Categories, in particular, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Hydraulics and the Ministry of Solidarity and Fight against Poverty.