To: 23/02/2010
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
The second consultation meeting for the replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF-12) will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 22-23 February 2010. The ADF-11 Mid-Term Review (MTR) was held in Helsinki, Finland on October 20 and 21, 2009. This forum also served as the kick-off and first meeting of the ADF-12 replenishment process.
The replenishment meeting comes at a critical time for the African continent. With only five years remaining before the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline, Africa stands out as the continent with the biggest development financing gaps. The 2008-2009 global economic and financial crisis has further challenged ADF countries, particularly fragile states, and jeopardizes the gains Africa has made over the past several years. To restore economic growth to pre-crisis levels, bridge infrastructure gaps, pursue regional integration, invest in climate change adaptation and mitigation, and achieve the MDGs, the needs are high.
Under ADF-11, the Fund has responded expeditiously to the needs of its clients, and has achieved unprecedented levels of commitments, particularly in its core strategic priority areas of infrastructure, governance, support for fragile states and regional integration. Both commitments and disbursements have doubled compared to ADF-10, demonstrating the ADF's capacity, flexibility and commitment to Africa's development. Under ADF-12, the Fund is committed to maintaining this track record of success even while it continue to build its capacity to deliver and measure development impacts in ADF client countries..
In the ADF-12 period, the ADF will also continue to contribute to development results on the ground. Recently, the AfDB's President recalled that AfDB "agreed to put in place a robust Results Management Framework. We now have such a framework that systematically attempts to measure the results of our operations on the ground. It is generating early strong, growing evidence that ADF operations exiting the portfolio are contributing significantly to development outcomes, such as the 17 million persons who have been connected to the electricity networks and 2 million persons who were able to access clean water."
The ADF is the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group's concessional window. It promotes economic and social development in 38 low-income African countries through the provision of concessional loans and grants (including to the private sector) to finance projects and programmes, as well as technical assistance for studies and capacity-building activities. Its main objective is to reduce poverty in Africa. As the Bank Group invests in new projects and initiatives on the continent, the resources provided to the ADF are periodically augmented.
The ADF is replenished every three years by 26 donor countries. The previous and 11th replenishment of the ADF, for the Fund's 2008-2010 operations, was concluded in December 2007 at a record level of USD 8.9 billion.
Contacts
Antoinette Batumubwira
