Workshop on Climate Finance, Green Growth and Economic Development in Africa

Following a successful launch at GSS 2025, the Global Sustainability Agendas, a project funded by Stiftung Mercator, has entered its next phase with this inaugural workshop.

Over the course of two days, the Community of Practice (CoP) has officially commenced its work, focusing on developing concrete recommendations to advance climate financing in the current environment. Stimulated by inputs, the expert workshop has examined concrete examples of best practices as well as unsuccessful practices, drawing primarily on South Africa as a case study.

The main goals of the workshop were to launch the work of the CoP as well as to explore pathways to concrete recommendations while examining the challenges that African countries face in particular.  Drawing on regional experiences—including, but not limited to, South Africa—the workshop explored how climate-related investments can be integrated into broader economic development strategies, considering, for instance, growth projections or specific types of investment that align with resource endowments, weather conditions, and other critical factors.

Drawing from a deep dive on South Africa’s JETP, the CoP agreed that country-driven pathways and platforms must sit at the centre of solutions. Whether in the form of JETPs, national development plans, or country platforms, the alignment of external finance with domestic priorities was seen as essential to ensuring legitimacy and impact.

The participants also discussed the need for economic development in many countries and the extent to which it can and should be made sustainable from early stages on. They also debated the efficacy of blended finance instruments, nuaning their necessity as de-risking tool for mobilizing capital at the needed scale with empirical observations that blended finance comes in various shapes and could often be better target with local priorities, timelines and community needs.

The output and learnings from this workshop will pave the way for further discussions and activities throughout the project.

Featured image: Photo by Kathrin Heigan on Unsplash