Today, we held in Addis a very productive meeting with Thomas Huyghebaert, Head of Cooperation at the Delegation of the EU to the African Union, and his team. 

The meeting provided an opportunity to express our gratitude and appreciation to the EU for their significant financial and technical contributions to the ARC Group. The EU has indeed been instrumental through secondment to our Research and Development work, which is critical to our efforts in helping our member states plan, prepare for, and respond to climate-related disasters.

The meeting was also an opportunity for us to brief the EU team on our progress to date (Over 900 million USD worth of coverage, 85 million people protected, 100 million USD in payouts, 4 million beneficiaries and experts in 17 countries trained in risk modelling, contingency planning, and risk transfer).

We also briefed the EU on our new strategic directions (I.e. evidence-based advocacy, product development, resource mobilisation, smart and strategic partnerships, gender mainstreaming, storytelling, etc). 

Finally, the meeting ended with constructive exchanges on the sustainability of ARC, funding needs, membership contributions, theory of change of ARC, data management, and strengthening of collaboration with other AU agencies operating in the humanitarian field). 

Great perspectives ahead as we scale up our work and continue our journey of making Africa more resilient vis a vis the negative effects of climate change.