‘Adaptation funds must flow to Africa’: GCA CEO and UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed discuss urgent need to step up adaptation action in Africa
N
ew York, New York, 19 July 2022 – The CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), Professor Patrick Verkooijen, today held a meeting with Ms. Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group.
During the meeting, held at the UN Headquarters in New York, Professor Verkooijen explained how the implementation of GCA’s flagship Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) is scaling-up adaptation action across Africa.
Professor Verkooijen expressed gratitude to Ms. Mohammed for the support to AAAP and her important work in promoting urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, especially relating to adaptation, under the UN Sustainable Development Goal 13.
The AAAP, jointly developed by the African Development Bank and GCA, actualizes the vision of the Africa Adaptation Initiative and will mobilize US$25 billion by 2025 for climate adaptation in food security, resilient infrastructure, adaptation jobs and climate finance.
AAAP’s catalytic interventions are mobilized through two financing mechanisms endorsed by the African Union: the Upstream Financing Facility, targeting a capitalization of US$250 million managed by the Global Center on Adaptation and the African Development Bank climate set aside as part of the ADF-16 replenishment. This dual financing strategy has enabled AAAP to rapidly deliver impact at scale by mainstreaming adaptation into projects worth over US$3 billion since 2021.
Ms. Mohammed, a strong proponent of allocating 50 percent of public climate finance to adaptation, pointed out that current extreme weather events around the world are proof of the urgent need to drive the adaptation agenda forward. She thanked Professor Verkooijen for his leadership on climate adaptation.
The leaders agreed on the importance of making climate adaptation disbursements and the need for adaptation funds to flow to Africa, the continent that is bearing the brunt of the climate emergency. They further underscored the importance of strengthened collaboration between GCA and the UN DSG’s office towards enlisting the full support of G7 leaders for increased climate adaptation financing.
During the meeting, attended by several members of Ms. Mohammed’s office, Ms. Mohammed confirmed that she will be attending GCA’s Africa Adaptation Summit: Friends of GCA High-Level Dialogue for COP27, scheduled for 5th September 2022 at the GCA headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The Summit, hosted by GCA, in collaboration with the African Union, African Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, Africa Adaptation Initiative, and Climate Vulnerable Forum aims to achieve an adaptation finance breakthrough to help deliver the historic Glasgow Climate Pact commitment to double international adaptation finance by 2025.
About the 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. Founded in 2018, GCA operates from its headquarters in the largest floating office in the world, located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. GCA has a worldwide network of regional offices in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire; Dhaka, Bangladesh and Beijing, China.
About the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP)
The Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) is the foremost Africa-owned and Africa-led program for investments in climate adaptation. It was developed by the African Development Bank and the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) in 2020 to mobilize $25 billion by 2025 to implement, scale and accelerate climate adaptation across the continent. AAAP works across four bold interconnected pillars to achieve transformational results: Climate-Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security; African Infrastructure Resilience Accelerator; Youth Empowerment for Entrepreneurship and Job Creation in Climate Adaptation and Resilience and Innovative Financial Initiatives for Africa.
About the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program Upstream Financing Facility
The AAAP Upstream Financing Facility at the Global Center on Adaptation supports the evidence-based knowledge, project design and preparation, and policy work needed for the success of AAAP operations. The AAAP Upstream Financing Facility provides resources to strengthen adaptation and resilience components in project pipelines, supports African organizations to directly access international climate finance and helps develop innovative financial instruments for climate adaptation. To date it has contributed to more than $3 billion of AAAP downstream investments in 19 countries with every $1 invested influencing approximately $100 of investment downstream.
