Statement delivered by H.E. Njuguna Ndung’u, Minister of Finance, Kenya

Statement delivered by H.E. Njuguna Ndung’u, Minister of Finance, Kenya

V20 MINISTERIAL DIALOGUE X

16 April 2023

H.E. Njuguna Ndung’u, Minister of Finance, Kenya

Thank you very much and it is my first time to be here so I’m very happy that I’ve been given this privilege. Let me make three points. 

First, I think I heard about the 1.5 degrees global warming. And this analysis shows that countries in the Horn of Africa for example in Kenya in particular are already to the right of the 1.5 degrees Celsius. What does that tell us? It tells us that the vulnerabilities in the future are going to continue, and they are going to be more pervasive. One of the things you need to analyze is what drought affects in the Horn of Africa, has actually been the whole issue of food security, energy prices, and climate change. There has been vast, perhaps 20 years of efforts of poverty reduction and inequality, and even introducing social conflict. So, you can imagine the pervasiveness of that.

The second point is about development finance. Most of these countries are facing huge catastrophic availability of development finance and that is why there is a lot of impetus in terms of how do we restructure the multilateral development institutions and even banks. And one of them is actually the cream of this reform, is actually requesting for three things –  flexibility, speed, and the innovativeness in terms of coming up with finance. 

The last point is about how we can actually structure and develop proper solutions. In Kenya for example, development partners have actually developed an Innovative Financing Locally Led Climate Action. We call it FLLoCA. And it is a program that most of the development partners are putting some funds through for localized solutions. It should also be consistent with the global solutions that we are discussing here and that for me is going to be very important. 

But finally, also, Kenya is going to have a Climate Finance Summit in September and heads of state are actually welcome, so it is another area where we are going to look for local solutions as well as try to see how they are consistent with global solutions.

Thank you very much. 

[END]