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9 December 2024
Crucial political leadership in the world’s most vulnerable region
A bumper year for the Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA)’s Regional Mayors Forum
During 2024, the Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA) Regional Mayors Forum (RMF), with elected representatives from all 4 subregions of SSA, representing the 380+ CoM SSA signatory cities and their populations, totalling 137+ million people, took bold leadership both at home and abroad.
Bringing the African city voice to critical events
The RMF participated actively in three critical events during 2024:
- The first African Urban Forum (AUF), held in Addis Ababa in September: At this event an in-person meeting of the RMF was held to coordinate and co-develop the messages that CoM SSA sought to be integrated into the AUF’s Declaration. A Roadmap to COP30 was also developed. The Roadmap centers around two key calls for 2025: (1) The operationalisation of a loss and damage fund that delivers resources directly to subnational governments and the communities they serve, and (2) substantially improved climate finance flows, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in ways that best serve African cities, where the impacts of climate change are experienced.
- The 12th World Urban Forum, which took place in Cairo in November: CoM SSA RMF Mayors played a pivotal role in highlighting African cities’ priorities, through dynamic panel discussions and high-level engagements.
- COP29 held in Baku, in November: During the “Urbanisation and Climate Ministerial Day” RMF representatives engaged directly with global leaders, advocating for scaled-up climate finance, direct resource flows to subnational governments, and the operationalisation of a Loss and Damage Fund.
Deepening city-to-city relations
The RMF’s impact extends beyond political advocacy and pushing the conversation forward at critical events. It also unlocks peer-to-peer collaboration and learning, which is crucial to African led and African relevant progress.
Ahead of the AUF, the Mayor of Dire Dawa (Ethiopia) hosted RMF members in his city, sharing inspiring examples of local climate action, such as Dire Dawa’s Sediment Storage Dam project. This project mitigates flood risks and improves water access for agricultural communities during droughts, crucially bringing together the traditional knowledge held by rural communities with engineering expertise, enhancing the knowledge base utilised for project related decision making.
During the AUF Memorandums of Understanding were signed to foster city-to-city relationships between Dire Dawa (Ethiopia) and fellow RMF members: Quelimane (Mozambique), Kloto 1 (Togo), Walvis Bay (Namibia), and Nouakchott (Mauritania). These partnerships are enabling leading climate action cities in the Global South to learn from each other and harness mutual networks to mobilise resources for scaled local action.
Looking forward
2025 is set to be a crucial year for climate action in African cities. It is a make or break year, as we witness the narrowing of the window of opportunity we have to enable the transformative action necessary to avoid a climate catastrophe. 2025 is also the year that CoM SSA moves into its fourth phase, with the RMF playing a critical role in ensuring that the impact of the initiative is further scaled and deepened. The RMF especially looks forward to the lead up to and participation in COP30, which will be a pivotal moment in time, one that must be used to secure greater ambition and resource commitments than what was witnessed at COP29.
The CoM SSA initiative is co-funded by the European Union (EU), the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). CoM SSA is, and co-implemented by the GIZ, AECID, the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) and Expertise France. ICLEI Africa hosts the CoM SSA Secretariat.
