African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group and GCA partner to promote Climate Resilience and Disaster Risk Finance

R otterdam, the Netherlands, 6 September 2021 – The African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group and the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build climate resilience in the agriculture sector by facilitating investments in risk management into government planning and high-level advocacy. This will be supported by a joint assessment of the landscape for developing risk transfer instruments and other innovative instruments to enhance African countries participation in ARC Disaster Risk Pools.

Under the MoU, signed by the heads of both insitutions, the Parties will jointly engage in high-level advocacy and the facilitation of dialogues to ensure their stakeholders can access the best disaster risk financing practice and instruments as part of their overall climate adaptation strategies.
 
Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of GCA, noted the need for such collaboration in mobilizing new sources of finance for adaptation:

“There is a five-to-tenfold gap between the financial resources currently devoted to climate adaptation and the adaptation needs in developing countries. More private-sector investment and new financial instruments are needed to help vulnerable communities withstand accelerating climate impacts. Through this partnership our Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program will work to ensure we can adapt at scale across the continent and provide the support that is so desperately needed by those living on the frontline of our climate emergency.”
 
“Achieving climate resilience in Africa demands smart partnerships and purposeful alignment among like-minded agencies”, said UN-ASG Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, Director-General of the ARC Group. “We are confident that the collaboration with GCA will be a strong enabler to ensuring that we maintain a solution-oriented approach in assisting our members with the innovative tools, capacity building, and financial resources they need for an anticipatory response to natural disaster risks”, added Mr. Diong.
 
The partnership agreement also targets collaboration in policy influencing activities to align the African financial sector with climate change commitments at the national and global levels. This will include mainstreaming the inclusion of climate resilience among African financial insurance regulators as well as knowledge generation and dissemination to strengthen disaster risk mitigation initiatives at all levels.
 
ARC and GCA are uniquely positioned, within the scope of the partnership and mandates, to work in synergy for the achievement of their common objectives. This will help in providing holistic and innovative solutions to build resilience by scaling up adaptation for timely climate disaster response in African Union Member States.
 
Notes to Editors:
 
About ARC Group
African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group consists of ARC Agency and ARC Insurance Company Limited (ARC Ltd). ARC Agency was established in 2012 as a Specialized Agency of the African Union to help the Member States improve their capacities to better plan, prepare and respond to weather-related disasters. ARC Ltd is a mutual insurance facility providing risk transfer services to the Member States through risk pooling and access to reinsurance markets. ARC was established on the principle that investing in preparedness and early warning through an innovative financing approach is highly cost-effective and can save upward of four dollars for every dollar invested ex-ante.

With the support of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, France, the European Union, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United States, ARC assists the AU Member States in reducing the risk of loss and damage caused by extreme weather events affecting Africa’s populations by providing, through sovereign disaster risk insurance, targeted responses to natural disasters in a more timely, cost-effective, objective and transparent manner. ARC is now using its expertise to help tackle some of the other most significant threats faced by the continent, including floods and outbreaks & epidemics.

Since 2014, 62 policies have been signed by the Member States for cumulative insurance coverage of US$719 million for the protection of 72 million vulnerable populations in participating countries.
 
About Global Center on Adaptation
The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an international organization which works as a solutions broker to accelerate action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international to the local, in partnership with the public and private sector, to ensure we learn from each other and work together for a climate resilient future. Founded in 2018, the GCA is hosted by the Netherlands, working from its headquarters in Rotterdam with a knowledge and research hub based in Groningen. The GCA has a worldwide network of regional offices in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Dhaka, Bangladesh and Beijing, China. Through this evolving network of offices and global and regional GCA teams, the organization engages in high-level policy activities, new research contributions, communications, and technical assistance to governments and the private sector.
 
 
Media Contacts
Alexandra Gee | Head of Communication, GCA| E-mail: alex.gee@gca.org
Chinedu Moghalu | Communications & Advocacy Advisor | African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group | E-mail: chinedu.moghalu@arc.int 
Molalet Tsedeke| Media Coordinator | Directorate of Information and Communication, African Union Commission | E-mail: MolaletT@africa-union.org

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