By Bendana Christopher
What you need to know:
Public finance alone cannot meet the challenge of climate change. As such, the private sector needs to come on board. Uganda’s National Climate Finance Strategy 2023/2024-2029/2030 is a blueprint to mobilise money. The strategy talks about raising climate change financing through courting the private sector and prudent international sourcing, and integrating climate change finance in the entire budget system, as Christopher Bendana reports.
The Grow Trees and Change Lives (GRO) Foundation’s breakout session table at the first National Private Sector Engagement Forum on Climate Change held on May 10 at the Kampala Serena Hotel had the largest number of attendees. The other breakout sessions were hosted by Bank of Uganda (Green Bonds), Ministry for Water and Environment (Nature-Based Solutions), and Aceli Africa (Blended Finance and Credit Enhancement).
All sessions were aligned with the current global climate change financing dynamic to court the private sector into climate change financing. The conference, organised by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, was intended to bring the private sector into financing climate change businesses. Private capital is being touted as the facilitator of climate change actions as public funding continuously falls. The shortfall has led to large funding gaps.
