Norway has announced a financial commitment of 70 million Norwegian Krone ($6.5 million) for an African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) programme to boost Africa’s resilience and responsiveness to climate shocks.

With the pledge, Norway becomes the fifth country to join the Bank Group’s Africa Disaster Risk Financing Programme (ADRiFi) Multi-Donor Trust Fund, which bolsters sovereign drought insurance protection to mitigate the negative impacts in Africa of climate-related extremes such as cyclones, flooding and drought.

The financing commitment, over three years, comes was announced on the sidelines of the COP28 UN climate summit, where officials from the African Development Bank and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation met in Dubai.

Norway’s Minister of International Development, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, said:  “Norway is proud of becoming a new donor to the Africa Disaster Risk Financing Programme and providing additional funding to reduce the risk of climate related disasters and make parametric insurance solutions more accessible to a greater variety of stakeholders on the African continent."

She added that climate change has disrupted the daily lives of many Africans. Enhancing countries’ resilience and response to climate shocks by responding to early warnings, "enables mitigation of some of the devastating effects before they have occurred - securing lives, livelihoods, and economies."

Dr. Beth Dunford, African Development Bank Group Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development said: “Growing numbers in the international community are realizing that this African-led solution to Africa’s climate change-related challenges is impactful and important. Norway’s support for the ADRiFi Multi-Donor Trust Fund will help bring protection to millions of the continent’s most vulnerable coping with climate risk, and enhance African countries’ ability to be more resilient to climate change.”

Other donor countries to the ADRiFi Multi-Donor Trust Fund include: the United Kingdom,  Switzerland, the United States and Canada.

Under the Africa Disaster Risk Financing Programme and in collaboration with the African Risk Capacity Group, the Bank is at the forefront of promoting proactive climate risk management instruments in Africa. The Bank has invested more than $100 million and supported 15 African countries to access sovereign insurance and financial protection against climate hazards.

Since its inception in 2018, the ADRiFi programme has provided financial protection against severe droughts and tropical cyclones to more than five million people, significantly contributing to bolstering resilience in vulnerable communities.