The African Development Bank held its first meeting with the Arab Development Finance Institution in Abidjan on Tuesday.
The African Development Bank held its first meeting with Arab Development Financial Institutions in Abidjan to address Africa’s development challenges. The meeting emphasized the need for large-scale capital to address issues such as energy access, climate resilience and regional integration as support from Western donors declines. AfDB President Sidi Ould Tarr emphasized the importance of a structured partnership with the Arab Coordination Group to close Africa’s $402 billion annual funding gap. Key terms of cooperation were outlined in the Declaration of Priorities. We co-finance large, long-term projects rather than individual investments.
The African Development Bank held its first meeting with the Arab Development Finance Institution in Abidjan on Tuesday.
The meeting comes as Africa faces declining support from Western donors, a widening development financing gap and an urgent need to mobilize large-scale finance for energy access, climate resilience, food security, regional integration and private sector-led growth.
Sidi Ould Tarr, the new AfDB president and former Mauritanian finance minister, said close cooperation with the Arab Coordination Group (ACG) is essential to closing the widening gap in development financing caused by spending cuts by countries, including the United States.
“What we need now is a more structured partnership, which is very strategic,” Tarr said.
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African strategic platform
The Arab Coordination Group (ACG), which includes the Arab Bank for African Economic Development, the OPEC International Development Fund and the Saudi Development Fund, could provide long-term financing for priorities such as industrialization and job creation, Tarr added.
Both sides signed a formal declaration outlining new terms of engagement, including co-financing priorities. Rami Ahmad, vice president of operations at the OPEC Fund, said the approach focuses on a coordinated platform for long-term, large-scale projects across the region, rather than one-off investments in countries.
Established in 1975, the Arab Coordination Group (ACG) is a strategic alliance that aims to provide a coordinated approach to development finance. Over the years, we have supported more than 13,000 projects in more than 160 countries, helping to drive economic and social development around the world.
Arab development agencies have long been major investors in Africa, contributing billions of dollars to projects in infrastructure, sanitation, agriculture and other critical sectors.
Tarr said “external shocks” were widening the continent’s development funding gap, the difference between current funding and the funding needed to invest in ports, agriculture and other critical infrastructure. In December, he estimated the difference at $402 billion a year.
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