Joint response to Climate, COVID will help Africa build back better

Robust response to the impacts of climate change must be at the centre of strategies by governments to ‘build back better’ in post-COVID-19 recovery. 

Building Back Better (BBB) is an approach to post-disaster recovery that reduces vulnerability to future disasters and builds community resilience to address physical, social, environmental, and economic vulnerabilities and shocks.

Contributing to a meeting organized by the World Bank, Mithika Mwenda, Executive Director, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) said the world is now past the point where governments do not see interconnectedness of major global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate emergency and that these need joint responses and not as separate crises.

“The need for multi-threat approaches to analyzing and addressing local and global crises has never been more evident as now,” he said.

Mwenda said the recent floods in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and China, and the rising wildfire cases in the US, Greece, Tunisia, Turkey and the heat waves in Canada and India should be reason enough to drive home the point that responding to climate change is survival for all humanity — a key lesson he said which has always eluded the west.

“We are in this titanic ship we call planet earth together. We either act to save ourselves regardless of our races, geographical locations or national income classifications or we sink together,” he remarked.

Mithika said as CSOs, they have severally demanded technology transfer, and finance for adaptation to help adequately response to the climate crisis. But all along the message has been from the developed governments has remained the same: “there is no money”. However, the same developed governments came out strongly to raise billions of dollars within a short time in responding to COVID-19, a clear indication that what has been lacking is the political goodwill.

Clement Uwajeneza, Chairman, Rwanda Chamber of ICT said African governments need to innovative on climate action not just in post-COVID-19 but even now while we are in it. He appreciated the Rwandan Government’s effort to leverage on public-private partnership to offer effective COVID-19 response.