An African summit dedicated to financing sustainable development projects from the three climate commissions of the African Union (Congo Basin, Sahel region and island states) will be held on 8 November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on the sidelines of COP27.
Brought on through the initiative of Senegal’s President Macky Sall and Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso, this event will also aim to strengthen the cooperation mechanism between the three commissions and “unite the voices of African countries in favour of fairer African finance”.
Along with Sall and Nguesso, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the host of COP27, have invited several of their peers to attend this side event.
‘Special invitation’ letters
Among the guests are Morocco’s King Mohammed VI (organiser of the 2016 Action Summit that created the three commissions), DRC’s Félix Tshisekedi, Gabon’s Ali Bongo Ondimba, Niger’s Mohamed Bazoum, Côte d’Ivoire’s Alassane Ouattara, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Seychelles’ Wavel Ramkalawan.
Letters of “special invitation” were also sent to France’s Emmanuel Macron (as guarantor of the 2015 Paris climate agreement), the US’s Joe Biden (who may be represented by his personal climate envoy, John Kerry), China’s Xi Jinping (the level of Chinese representation at COP27 is not yet known), EU President Ursula Von der Leyen, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and African Union Commission President Moussa Faki Mahamat.
The Senegalese head of state, in his capacity as current chair of the AU, signed these official letters, which were the subject of an explanatory tour by Arlette Soudan-Nonault, the Congolese minister for environment, sustainable development and the Congo Basin. In mid-October, she visited Dakar, Niamey, Rabat, Cairo, Kinshasa and Paris.
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