Climate Action Platform Africa (CAP-A)

See attached concept note.

Open

I spoke with Carlijn Nouwen (carlijn.nouwen@cap-a.org) and Mikalaya (mikayla.czajkowski@sunculture.com) on July 5.

Interesting initiative and one that may be quite relevant for Kenya and Ethiopia work.

• High level idea is to bundle a bunch of climate smart interventions and then make them available for low-upfront cost to farmers through subsidies that are based on the expected ecosystem benefits from that bundle

• Bundle 1 = solar irrigation (from SunCulture), biodigester (Sistema Bio) and soil carbon monitor (from Cropnuts). The bundle is ~$1500 and the contributing partners will make it available for $500; Cap-A will cover this cost as well and make it basically free for farmers

• The idea is for CAP-A to deal with the complexity of carbon offsets revenue (not farmers); farmers just get the benefit of the bundle at no up-front costs (which is the major barrier to adoption)

• There is some notion of “price discovery” on carbon offset pricing which will make the viable model but its honestly a bit confusing at the moment

• Want to deploy 500 bundles as part of a pilot

• I explained DG’s data collection approach (wallet, consent, etc.) may be relevant for the initiative and it seemed to be of interest

• The project is aligned with Regen10 which was announced at COP26 and seems relevant for DG; funding platform definitely aligned with their talking points

  • The initiative, with farmers at its heart, will work with over 500 million farmers to apply regenerative production methods and transform agricultural systems, as well as ensure roughly USD $60 billion per year is deployed to finance the transition. By 2030, it is hoped that over 50% of the world’s food can be produced in a way that drives positive outcomes for people, for nature, and for climate.