The African Development Bank, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), have launched the Clim-Dev Special Fund (CDSF), a multi-donor fund, which aims to address the challenges associated with climate data and information.

The fund is currently capitalized to €33m with contributions from the Nordic Development Fund, Swedish International Development Agency and the European Union.

The fund will help African countries to invest in the production and use of climate information for sustainable and transformative economic development and better livelihoods in Africa.

The fund is open to applications for grants of between €200,000 and €400,000 and available on the ClimDev-Africa website.

Fatima Denton, Coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) and Director of Special Initiatives Division at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), said the launch comes when Africa is getting seriously frustrated with climate finance "promises that have remained pledges and hollow words for our vulnerable communities of farmers, fishers, pastoralists".

The CDSF is a demand-led fund that pools resources to finance investment activities on the ground across Africa for the generation and use of climate information for climate-resilient development.

Grants are provided to projects in line with the ClimDev-Africa Programme's goal, purpose and results areas and are implemented by national and regional organisations at all levels on the continent.

The financial management and administration of the CDSF along with roles and responsibilities, and the criteria for funding activities through the ClimDev Special Fund are defined the ClimDev Special Fund Operational

Procedures Manual (OPM) agreed to by the CDSC on November 29, 2011.

Yacine Fal, Resident Representative of the Bank to the Kingdom of Morocco, thanked the European Union for providing seed money of €20m for five initial operations that would, among other things, enhance the capacities of national meteorological and hydrological services to receive numerical weather prediction models in order to raise relevant warnings to their disaster risk management agencies for extreme weather events.

The African Development Bank and its partners in the ClimDev-Africa Programme consider climate change to be a serious threat to Africa and are engaged at the highest levels of their respective institutions in tackling it.
African Development Bank Vice-President Aly Abou-Sabaa stated that climate change threatens to undermine all the development and progress that Africa has made so far, including in the area of poverty reduction and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.

The fund was launched at the Fourth Annual Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-IV) in Marrakech, Morocco.