BONN – The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) have set up an emergency post-disaster reconstruction financing initiative to help the Region recover from recent hurricane events.

The arrangement will support investments for infrastructure reconstruction projects in the Caribbean in the wake of the recent hurricanes. The new USD 24 million financing package is an addition to the USD 120 million Climate Action Framework Loan II signed in May this year, and which remains the EIB’s biggest loan to the Caribbean. Eligible investments under the new loan will include infrastructure reconstruction, with a focus on “building back better” and integrating climate risk and vulnerability assessments into the projects. This will help reduce the Bank’s Borrowing Member Countries’ vulnerability to future natural disasters and worsening climate change impacts. As well as infrastructure, financing to communities for low-carbon and climate-resilience measures such as improved water resource management are also foreseen.

To date, CDB has committed all of the resources under the first Climate Action Line of Credit – USD 65.6 million – for seven projects. This co-financing is associated with total project financing of USD 191 million. Since CDB’s Climate Resilience Strategy was approved in 2012, 58% of projects financed have included climate change adaptation and/or mitigation elements in the climate-sensitive sectors of water, education, agriculture, and physical infrastructure such as sea defences, drainage, and roads. Using the Joint Multilateral Development Bank Methodology, climate financing represented 13% of total CDB project financing in 2015. In 2016, CDB approved USD 50 million for projects with explicit climate resilience and sustainable energy actions…[+]