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Rich nations paid less than 5% of the $53.3b East Africa needs to tackle the climate crisis

Rich nations paid Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan just $2.4 billion in climate-related development finance in 2021, in stark contrast to the $53.3 billion East Africa says it needs annually to meet its 2030 climate goals.

Oxfam’s “Unfair Share” Report, shows that the biggest polluting nations have fallen short of meeting both the climate and the humanitarian funds East African countries need to recover from their climate-fuelled hunger crisis. It highlights the impact of climate change on the future of the region.

Oxfam in Africa Director, Fati N’Zi-Hassane said: “Even by their own generous accounts, polluting nations have delivered only pittance to help East Africa scale up their mitigation and adaptation efforts. Nearly half the funds (45%) they did give were loans, plunging the region further into more debt.”

A prolonged drought and erratic rainfalls have killed nearly 13 million animals, and decimated hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops, leaving millions of people without income or food. These four East African countries have incurred up to an estimated $30 billion of losses from 2021 to the end of 2023. Oxfam estimates that these countries also lost approximately $7.4 billion worth of livestock.

As a result, over 31 million people across the four countries are suffering severe hunger because of a two-year drought and years of flooding, compounded by displacement and conflict. Despite the soaring humanitarian need, rich nations have only met about one-third of the UN appeal for East Africa this year.

Industrialized economies have significantly contributed to the climate crisis, which now disproportionally affects regions like East Africa. The G7 countries and Russia alone have been responsible for 85 percent of global emissions since 1850. This is 850 times the emissions of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan combined.

“Global financial institutions are also complicit in this climate-fuelled hunger crisis, as they drag developing countries into a spiral of debt, preventing them from fully recovering from consecutive shocks.” said N’Zi-Hassane.

At the first African Climate Summit, Oxfam urged African leaders to speak up and hold rich polluting nations to account for this climate crisis. “Rich nations must immediately inject funds to meet the $ 8.74 billion UN humanitarian needs for East Africa in order to save lives now,” N’Zi-Hassane said.

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