New Delhi, Sep 7 (IANS): The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) have announced their plan to engage in a collaboration to accelerate action on climate change adaptation.

The partnership recognises the urgent need to mobilize action in regions of the world that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as the African continent, where the EIB and GCA aim to collaborate on the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme (AAAP), an initiative developed by the African Development Bank and GCA to scale up adaptation action in Africa by mobilising $25 billion.

The EIB and GCA have identified various focus areas of collaboration -- financing adaptation solutions, supporting knowledge, tools and capacity-building on adaptation and sharing best practices and data.

The two organisations foresee working closely with the African Development Bank and other multilateral development banks, as well as international financial institutions, aiming to provide financing for projects that fall under the AAAP's pillars, which include infrastructure resilience, youth empowerment through jobs and entrepreneurship and climate smart digital technologies for agriculture and food security.

Another expected outcome of the EIB-GCA partnership is to identify and support opportunities and projects that could significantly contribute to climate adaptation around the world, particularly in Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States, and in the regions of EIB operations.

"Working alongside the European Investment Bank on our common goal of accelerating global climate adaptation action represents an outstanding opportunity to combine our resources to safeguard our planet and future generations against the impacts of climate change," said Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of GCA.

EIB President Werner Hoyer commented: "We are delighted to strengthen our cooperation with the Global Center on Adaptation to accelerate adaptation action in the most climate vulnerable regions of the world.

"The collaboration will bring together our complementary strengths, with the EIB as one of the world's largest multilateral financiers of climate action and the GCA as a solutions broker for adaptation."

The EIB and GCA announced their proposed partnership on Monday during the High-Level Dialogue on "An Adaptation Acceleration Imperative for COP26" with global leaders gathered at GCA headquarters in Rotterdam ahead of COP26, which included EIB President Hoyer.