British International Investment
12 November 2022

Adaptation & Resilience Investors Collaborative reaches key milestone with appointment of its Secretariat

  • New strategic partnerships established to overcome key hurdles to private investment in climate adaptation and resilience in emerging economies.

The group of development finance institutions working together under the Adaptation & Resilience Investors Collaborative (the “Collaborative”), today announced the selection of UNEP-FI as the Secretariat of the initiative.

Members of ARIC committed last year to substantially increase investments in climate adaptation and resilience to support vulnerable developing and emerging countries. It is doing so by working towards addressing systemic barriers to private investment in climate adaptation and resilience (A&R) as outlined in the action plan to the G7. Earlier these members reported on progress underway, and outlined key activities needed to further accelerate investment in A&R.

The establishment of an independent Secretariat is a key milestone of the initiative because it is instrumental to deliver the planned activities. UNEP-FI provides the Collaborative with a platform to engage with and reach its private sector constituency across the globe. This is key to ensuring that the deliverables of the Collaborative across its workstreams – physical climate risk assessment; investors-relevant metrics and investment vehicles – are suited for private investors and financiers.

Amal-Lee Amin, Managing Director, Climate, Gender and Advisory, at BII, said: “The gravity of the climate emergency is becoming more apparent every day. As our recent Emerging Economies Climate Report 2022 highlights, our investees are increasingly experiencing the negative impacts of climate change on their business activities and fear the impacts on their viability. Radical collaboration is required to design and deliver systemic solutions to a systemic problem. The Collaborative and its new partnership with UNEP-FI is a critical avenue to achieving this.”

Eric Usher, Head at UNEP-FI said: “Seven years on from the Paris Agreement, climate adaptation remains a major challenge as global economies and societies grapple with a rapidly heating world. UNEP’s 2022 Adaptation Gap Report highlights how climate finance is still failing to meet adaptation and resilience needs, particularly of the most vulnerable regions and communities. This partnership between the Adaptation & Resilience Investors Collaborative and UNEP FI will support the tools and innovative solutions necessary to bridge this adaptation financing gap”.

About the Collaborative

Launched at the Finance in Common Summit 2020, the Adaptation & Resilience Investors Collaborative is an international partnership of development finance organisations working together to accelerate and scale up private investment in climate adaptation and resilience in developing and emerging countries. To this end, we build know-how and tools, and we join forces to develop pipelines of bankable investments and support early-stage ventures with innovative climate adaptation and resilience solutions to become investment-ready.

Members and partners of the Collaborative are Agence Française de Développement, British International Investment, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti in its role as Financial Institution for International Development Cooperation, the European Investment Bank, FinDev Canada, Finnfund, FMO of the Netherlands, the Global Center on Adaptation, the Global Innovation Fund, the Islamic Development Bank, KfW Development Bank, the Nordic Development Fund, Proparco, Swedfund, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, USAID, and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

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