How can we enable African climate innovation to thrive?  

Much of the discussion around COP27 this year has focused on Africa’s response to the climate crisis. One of the areas that has the potential to transform climate resiliency across the continent is climate-tech and how to enable this sector to grow and scale with the help of both the private and public sectors.  EIT Climate-KIC’s panel on Tuesday 8 November at the UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub, brought together entrepreneurship, investment, government and research representatives to take a closer look at what is holding back innovation in Africa’s climate space and what concrete steps can be taken to change that.  

“Quite a lot of early-stage innovators are facing challenges in accessing finance to support their ventures” said Joshua Murima, Head of Engagement and Investor Relations at Briter Bridges, highlighting the huge barrier access to finance proposes for early-stage climate tech across the continent. Jade Bouhmouch, Managing Partner at Ambo Ventures, quantified this point by noting that only 20 per cent of all capital that goes into Africa goes to local entrepreneurs. There is also a huge gap in terms of the types of innovations being funded in the climate space across the continent. Research by EIT Climate-KIC and Briter Bridges shows that over 75 per cent of all funding disclosed to climate start-ups in Africa went to renewables. Although this area is vital to building climate resilience in a lot of countries across the continent, it’s not the only place innovation can be made and therefore, shows the need for venture capitalists to actively diversify the type of companies being invested in.  

There was also an acknowledgement that solutions to climate issues in Africa have the potential to solve climate issues across the world and this needs to be more explicitly understood by entrepreneurs and investors alike.  “The innovations in Africa are being looked at as local solutions rather than looking at them as solutions to climate issues in Europe or North America” said Prabhakar Vanam, CEO of Kenya Climate Innovation Centre. This sentiment was echoed by Audrey S-Darko, Founder and CEO of Sabon Sake, who noted that African entrepreneurs also need to be thinking about their products in a global and systemic way as these solutions could be hugely beneficial across other areas and regions as well. Audrey recently spoke to us about her own start-up, which works to equip farmers with the tools to battle soil degradation and enhances their livelihoods, about her hopes to build a grassroots movement of sustainable farming not only in Ghana, but across the world.  

Moving beyond the private and entrepreneurship world, what role can the public sector take in creating an enabling environment for climate-tech in Africa? Sinead Walsh, Climate Director at Irish Aid, spoke around the power public organisations have in taking bigger risks to invest in early-stage ideas and to create programmes such as the ClimateLaunchpad to support the advancement of knowledge and skills for entrepreneurs. Governments can also take an active role in legislating in favour of climate solutions, pushing business to make decisions to invest and support the climate solutions of tomorrow.  

Watch the sessions on African innovation ecosystems: Accelerating climate solutions for the African continent

Watch the session on supply- and demand-side barriers faced by women climate-tech entrepreneurs in Africa