Currently, Africa’s infrastructure needs are around USD 130–170 billion a year, with an investment gap of over 50–60% of that amount. Making Africa’s infrastructure resilient adds only an average of 3% to total costs, but every $1 spent could yield $4 of benefits. 

The Africa Infrastructure Resilience Accelerator (Pillar 2 of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP)) focuses on accelerating infrastructure resilience efforts on the continent. It will strengthen the enabling environment and provide the technical support to scale up investment in resilient infrastructure. It will also ensure that new and existing infrastructure uses nature-based solutions and create positive socioeconomic impacts and green jobs. By 2025, Pillar 2 of the AAAP aims to scale up investment at national and city level for climate-resilient infrastructure in key sectors such as water, transport, energy, and waste management, and integrate resilience in up to 50% (by value) of new infrastructure projects.

The City Adaption Accelerators (CAAs) are carrying out Rapid Climate Risk Assessments in target cities, which aim to improve climate adaptation and build resilience in urban areas.

The primary purpose of the RCRAs is to inform the identification and preparation of AfDB projects.

The RCRAs will inform the development of a comprehensive climate adaptation strategy and prioritization plan and are a crucial step towards the development of the CAA for each of the target cities. The overarching objective of the CAA is to create a shared strategic framework for GCA’s engagement in climate adaptation and resilience building in urban areas. The development objective of the CAA is to support cities and countries to strengthen their urban climate adaptation and resilience outcomes through enhanced (1) understanding; (2) planning; (3) investments; and (4) governance and capacity building.

• Outputs will inform future discussions surrounding climate adaptation investments 
• GCA is demonstrating its unique value add in its ability to provide technical guidance to firms towards developing well-informed analyses
• Literature review of vulnerability and adaptive capacity assessments of cities to climate change
• Scoping of past and current initiatives and key stakeholders relevant for adaptation and resilience building in cities

• City Scan: rapid review of actions around climate hazard and risk assessments and more locally focused assessments of vulnerability and adaptive capacity
• Rapid Climate Risk Assessment: an overview of the key climate hazards and associated risks; will indicate whether an in-depth climate risk assessment is required
• City Scoping: provides insight into past and current initiatives relevant for adaptation and resilience building and identifies key stakeholders and relevant initiatives

As part of the CAA, the RCRAs will contribute to the following impacts:

• Strengthened urban climate risk management in cities and their hinterlands
• Improved climate adaptive spatial planning at the municipal and regional levels
• Enhanced water resources management for more equitable access to ecosystem benefits
• Enhanced resilience, consistency, inclusiveness and integration of urban drinking water, sanitation and solid waste management services
• Improved urban liveability and public health due to a reduction in climate risks stemming from heat stress and disease