World Bank approves $9.175 million GEF grant for CAR urban resilience

The World Bank approved an additional $9.175 million Global Environment Facility grant to scale up the Central African Republic's PROVIR project with nature-based urban solutions in Bangui and Berbérati. The model blending green infrastructure with social equity offers a blueprint for climate-vulnerable contexts, including Indian urban adaptation planning.

The Central African Republic received an additional $9.175 million grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), approved by the World Bank, to scale up the Inclusive and Resilient Cities Project (PROVIR) with targeted nature-based solutions in Bangui and Berbérati, focusing on urban forest regeneration and green-space development. The funding expands PROVIR, originally designed to enhance urban resilience through infrastructure, to explicitly include ecosystem-based adaptation. The project aligns with the World Bank's Climate Change Action Plan (2021-2025) promoting green, resilient, and inclusive urban growth.

More than 300,000 residents are directly affected, including vulnerable groups such as displaced persons, returnees, women, and youth, who stand to benefit from enhanced flood and erosion risk mitigation. CAR remains among the most climate-vulnerable countries globally, facing worsening deforestation, flooding, and extreme weather. Per Country Manager Guido Rurangwa, the initiative will increase rainwater retention, reduce flooding and soil erosion, and create livelihoods through forestry and aquatic ecosystems, underscoring the multi-functional value of ecosystem-based urban planning for fragile urban centres.

The expansion is underpinned by support from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), the City Climate Finance Gap Fund, and NBS Invest, which provided technical assistance, project design, and capital mobilisation strategies. Nature-based infrastructure will be co-implemented by local municipal bodies with national climate agencies, following World Bank safeguards and results-monitoring protocols, with capacity-building and community participation components. Sustainability officers should monitor this blueprint blending green infrastructure with social equity and disaster risk reduction in fragile contexts.

Key figure — GEF grant: additional $9.175 million benefiting more than 300,000 residents