Tunis — The President of the African Development Bank (ADB) Group Mr. Omar Kabbaj and the UK Secretary of State in the Department for International Development (DFID), Mr. Hilary Benn, on Thursday in London, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formalizing cooperation between the two organisations in development work.

The focus of the MOU, which followed several years of informal partnership, is field level collaboration between the Bank and DFID in the following areas:

Budget Support and Institutional Strengthening Programmes, in connection with Poverty Reduction Strategies;

Economic and sector work, in particular conducting country governance, gender and environmental assessments;

Country programming and processing activities;

Co-financing arrangements;

Exchange of information and best practices to improve the quality of grant and loan financing to RMCs;

Conducting portfolio performance reviews, including, where feasible, joint reviews to assess the allocation of resources to their respective project cycle activities;

Harmonization of policies, procedures, guidelines and practices; and

Any other area of mutual interest in which the parties may agree to co-operate.

The MOU also identified 4 countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda) as the first set of countries that will benefit from the first year work programme in the identified areas of collaboration.

The collaboration is expected to further strengthen ADB/UK joint efforts in achieving their common goal of promoting economic growth and reducing poverty in Africa.