CABEI: the multilateral that promotes resilience to climate change in Central America
During the last five years CABEI has approved US$4,989 million in climate change operations.
Tegucigalpa, May 6th, 2021.- As part of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration's (CABEI) commitment to support the region and its sustainable development, over the last five years it has approved US$4.989 billion in climate change operations to mitigate climate change effects.
This was explained this Thursday by CABEI Executive President, Dr. Dante Mossi, in the webinar "Building Resilience to Climate Change in the Central American Region" organized by the Bank, in which he detailed that within the framework of the Resilient Reconstruction Program approved at the end of 2020, emergency aid has been provided to countries affected by storms Eta and Iota for a total of US$3.5 million.
The Central American Resilient Reconstruction Program was structured in record time weeks after the natural phenomena that affected Central America, particularly Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, and up to US$2,513.0 million was made available to the countries to provide resources to finance projects to address and prevent natural disasters, which will enable them to adapt to climate change effects.
"At CABEI, we are convinced that our Central America requires sustainable development that is resilient to natural phenomena. It is for this reason that we support projects aimed at mitigating climate change effects, as well as the creation of the Climate Change Investment Project Preparation Fund, which has been capitalized by CABEI with an initial amount of US$5.0 million with the objective of providing technical assistance resources for project preparation and natural disaster and adaptation management," explained Dr. Mossi.
He added that, along the same lines, CABEI also mobilized a US$150.0 million financing approval for the Public Sector aimed at promoting the reconstruction of Resilient Housing in Honduras, and CABEI is also participating in the Regional Coffee Growing Transformation Initiative to develop short and long-term credit operations, as well as technical cooperation to enable the transformation of coffee growing in the region into a profitable, sustained and impactful activity.
Dr. Mossi was accompanied by the Deputy Regional Director of the United Nations Environment Program in Latin America, Piedad Martin, the Head of Regional Cooperation of the European Union, Alberto Menghini, the Deputy Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund, Javier Manzanares, CABEI's Financial Manager, Hernan Danery Alvarado and representatives of the Green Climate Fund Designated National Authorities in each country; the importance of building strategic alliances to jointly develop new financing schemes and promote projects that help address climate change in the region was emphasized.