Tracking Climate Finance in Africa: Political and Technical Insights on Building Sustainable Digital Public Goods

Meeting the commitments of the 2015 Paris Agreement, including net zero emissions by 2050, will require not just enormous investment, but also vast quantities of data to track the value and impact of those investments. This is especially true in Africa, where countries are facing the double burden of extreme vulnerability to climate change with the fewest resources to build resilience to climate risks. In order to combat the effects of climate change, financing is needed to fund effective climate fighting strategies, including funding to develop tools, programming, etc. that aim to equip governments and communities to predict, prevent, and address the needs provoked by climate change.

Within this context, this paper aims to inform future work on building climate finance tracking (CFT) architectures at the national level in Africa. It specifically seeks to identify CFT needs and opportunities at the national level, offering five overarching reflections and insights to help guide practitioners working on the development of CFT systems in the development space.