CEO of GCA discusses the direction of adaptation efforts in Ethiopia with President Sahle-Work Zewde
President Sahle Work-Zewde and Prof. Dr. Patrick Verkooijen discussed Ethiopia’s adaptation priorities and needs, and the scaling up of implementation of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program.
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ddis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11 July 2022 – The CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), Prof. Dr. Patrick Verkooijen, today met with President Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia to hold a strategic exchange about adaptation efforts in the country and across Africa. During their meeting, President Zewde and Professor Verkooijen discussed Ethiopia’s adaptation priorities and needs, and the scaling up of implementation of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP).
As part of an official visit to Ethiopia, the meeting took place ahead of the Africa Adaptation Summit: GCA High-Level Dialogue for COP27 taking place on 5th September at GCA’s global headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. President Zewde will participate in the Summit alongside fellow African and other global leaders including President Macky Sall of Senegal and Chairperson of the African Union; President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Climate Vulnerable Forum Presidency Chair; and President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon and African Union Champion of the Africa Adaptation Initiative.
President Zewde participated in the Leaders’ Dialogue on the Africa Covid-19-Climate Crisis in April 2021 and in the launch of GCA’s regional office in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire in 2020, helping to develop the AAAP, and is a long-standing supporter of GCA’s flagship program and mission.
The AAAP, launched by GCA and the African Development Bank (AfDB) with the support of the African Union and African leaders, is mobilizing $25 billion for adaptation investments in Africa in the next five years. The AfDB has committed $12.5 billion to the initiative and is pursuing opportunities to mobilize an additional $13 billion for dedicated climate action.
GCA’s Upstream Financing Facility is working with this pipeline and that of other international finance institutions to mainstream the best climate adaptation science and solutions into programs across Africa, including in Ethiopia. In its first year of operation, the Upstream Financing Facility has influenced more than $3 billion of downstream investments with Multilateral Development Banks in 19 countries across Africa.
GCA is providing technical advisory support to a new World Bank investment project valued at $600 million, which aims to increase the resilience of Ethiopia’s food systems and its preparedness for food insecurity. In Ethiopia, 85 percent of farmers are dependent on rain-fed agriculture, and smallholder farmers are suffering from extreme weather events, increased temperatures and decreasing rainfall resulting from climate change.
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.
