French-speaking countries in Africa have said that in addition to being on the continent that is most vulnerable to climate change, climate finance bodies are largely dominated by English speakers, placing the francophone countries at a linguistic disadvantage in their national efforts to mobilize.
This observation was one of the findings shared during a high-level consultation of ministers from French-speaking countries on the issues around mobilizing climate funding, organized by the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) on 9 December 2023, alongside the 28th UN Climate Change Conference (COP28).
The consultation tagged “the French language supporting increased access to climate finance” gave ministers and heads of delegations an opportunity to identify solutions that would give the French language a greater role in climate negotiations and give French-speaking developing countries better access to climate finance.
The participants in this high-level consultation of French-speaking countries in Dubai made a number of recommendations among which is that “Climate justice needs language justice!”
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Reacting, OIF administrator Caroline Saint-Hilaire said “We need to send a strong message to our heads of state as well as to our ministers and representatives, to start speaking in French rather than English in the different climate negotiation bodies.”
Various speakers also insisted on the necessity for French-speaking countries to work strategically. This means learning from one other and emphasizing the solidarity among those that are successful in mobilizing funding and those that are not. This same solidarity needs to extend to the sponsors of green projects as they try to achieve an acceptable level of access to climate finance for French-speaking countries.
Participants also shared a proposal to instigate and strengthen high-level advocacy aimed at French-speaking heads of state for easier access to climate finance, looking ahead to the next Paris Summit on climate finance for developing countries.
Story was adapted from AFDB.
