Akinwumi Adesina, AfDB president, announced that the bank was on track to achieve its target of allocating 40% of its funding to climate finance by 2020, at the One Planet Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, last week.

He said it would double its climate financing “to at least” $25bn for the 2020-25 period.

Adesina said: “The required level of financing is only feasible with the direct involvement of the entire financial sector.”

He said the bank was hoping to link all stock exchanges, pension and sovereign wealth funds, central banks and other financial institutions in Africa to mobilise and incentivise the shift towards low carbon and climate-resilient investment.

The bank’s commitment on the 2020 target has progressed steadily from 9% in 2016, 28% in 2017 and 32% in 2018.

The bank will launch a new facility called Green Baseload to provide loans to support reliable and affordable renewable energy, it announced at the summit, which was attended by Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and French president Emmanuel Macron.

“It is not good enough to simply ask countries to stay away from polluting technologies,” Adesina said.

“We have to be proactive in exploring alternatives.”

Several donors, including Canada, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Italy, the UK and USAID, have indicated their interest in the project, which will also help replace coal, the bank said.