Tunis — The African Development Bank (ADB) Group and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have identified 15 projects that will serve as the basis of their 2005 joint work programme, following a two-day of consultation of their officials in Tunis.
The two sides identified 14 "concrete" NEPAD related projects and one other project during the 24-25 January meetings hosted by the Bank Group.
During the consultations, officials of the two organisations explained their respective institutional policy frameworks and operational focus areas as well as exchange information and data on the ongoing and pipeline projects in infrastructure, capacity building, agriculture and rural development, water, education, health, governance and the private sector.
The meetings enabled the officials to familiarise with each other's program/project thrusts, operational modality and project planning cycle; identify areas of common interest for possible collaboration, including joint project formulation, parallel implementation as well as sharing of technical resource persons.
The JICA team suggested three ways to promote the collaboration:
q That the AfDB consider participation in JICA infrastructure project formulation study teams already planned for FY2005
q That JICA align ongoing projects with related AfDB-supported projects and NEPAD;
q That AfDB and JICA formulate a new project jointly under the continental framework of NEPAD.
The meeting resolved that "JICA consultation team and AfDB agreed to undertake necessary follow-up actions in order to ensure accelerated realisation of JICA-AfDB collaboration in support of NEPAD, contributing towards the shared goal of achieving the MDGs in Africa".
The consultations, led by the ADB Manager, Partnership and Cooperation Division, Planning and Budgeting Department., Mrs. Amabel Orraca-Ndiaye and JICA's Deputy Director General in charge of the Africa Department, Mr. Masaaki Kato, was a follow-up to high-level meetings of the two organisations aimed at promoting collaboration on NEPAD.
