By Etienne Mainimo Mengnjo
The African Development Bank, AfDB Group’s Board of Directors has approved a $6 million grant to support the African Risk Capacity in boosting disaster preparedness and risk financing across the continent over the 2025-2026 period.
The grant, approved Oct. 29, 2025, is provided through the bank’s African Disaster Risk Financing Initiative (ADRiFi). It aims to help African Risk Capacity (ARC) maintain its core capacity-building and disaster risk financing services for the bank’s regional member countries.
The project is designed to help African governments shift from reactive disaster response to proactive preparedness.
It will strengthen national institutions’ technical expertise and operational capacities in disaster risk management, including evidence-based risk assessment, early warning systems and training for policymakers and technical experts.
A key component will enhance countries’ ability to plan and allocate resources for emergencies more efficiently. It will also support the development of stronger institutional frameworks to coordinate rapid and effective responses to natural disasters.
ARC will work to expand country participation in its sovereign insurance risk pool by increasing engagement and offering new climate risk insurance products to its member states.
Planned activities include high-level advocacy for the ratification of the ARC Treaty, finalizing work programs with participating countries, and facilitating insurance premium support.
The grant implementation will cover all ARC member states, focusing on regions most exposed to droughts, floods, tropical cyclones and epidemics.
Beneficiaries will include policymakers, technical working groups and civil servants, who will receive targeted assistance in disaster risk quantification, contingency planning, risk financing, women’s inclusion and monitoring and evaluation.
The African Risk Capacity, established in 2012 as a specialized institution of the African Union, provides member states with risk modeling, contingency planning and sovereign disaster risk financing services.
Since its inception, 39 African Union member states have signed the ARC Agreement, facilitating the disbursement of more than $230 million to 14 countries, which has protected millions of vulnerable people through rapid financing in the aftermath of disasters.
On the other hand, the African Development Bank Group, Africa’s premier development finance institution, comprises three entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF).
Represented in 41 African countries, with an external office in Japan, the bank contributes to the economic development and social progress of its 54 regional member states.
