The President of the African Development Bank Group, Akinwumi A. Adesina, and Abdulrahman A. Al Hamidy, Director General Chairman of the Board of the Arab Monetary Fund, met on the margins of the World Bank-IMF 2015 annual meetings in Lima, Peru, to discuss the economic challenges facing the 10 member countries in common between the two institutions. Both leaders reaffirmed the importance of their partnership and how best to leverage their respective core competencies and comparative advantages against a backdrop of domestic, regional and international economic developments, with ensuing increases in financing needs in a number of these countries.
The long cooperation between the two institutions have been strengthened recently under the Deauville Partnership with joint activities focusing on the development of domestic capital markets. In this regard, joint assessment missions visited Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco in the context of the Arab Debt Market Development Initiative (ADMDI). The outcome of this collaboration consisted of three reports for Tunisia, Morocco (2013) and Egypt (2014) documenting the progress made, and listing the barriers to local capital markets development and recommendations to address them.
Discussion focused on opportunities and ways to building up a broad collaboration between AfDB and AMF that paves the way for a promising enhanced partnership, which will build on the existing foundation to develop solutions that drive inclusive and sustainable economic growth in their common member countries by expanding financial and banking sector programs and initiatives, and increasing access to finance and financial services.
AfDB and AMF expressed willingness to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to crystallize their future collaboration in Financial Sector Development and a number of activities have been identified, including (i) Joint support for a programmatic approach to Financial Sector Development reforms, (ii) Funding for Technical Assistance programmes and the establishment of exchange programmes for technical experts, (iii) Technical and financial support for joint Financial Sector Development capacity-building programmes, (iv) Development of tailor-made SME programmes, and (v) Support for the development, integration and upgrading of payment systems.
"The AfDB is committed to working with the AMF and our other international and regional partners to support building a vibrant, innovative, robust and competitive financial systems in Africa at both domestic and regional levels," said AfDB President Akinwumi A. Adesina. "This partnership will facilitate relations between the AfDB and the AMF, improve the efficiency of our efforts and provide a concrete basis for further cooperation on financial sector arena that will contribute positively to economic growth and social progress."
AMF Director General Chairman of the Board, Abdulrahman A. Al Hamidy, said, "Providing assistance to the development of the financial sector and supporting capacity development in the region has always been among our top priorities, and we look forward to pursuing and intensifying this effort to better tackle the needs of our African member countries. Our ongoing cooperation with AfDB has always been successful and we are glad that today it's being reinforced and strengthened to better serve the needs of our common member countries."
The meeting concluded with the establishment of a committee comprising Senior Managers at both organisations with the aim of identifying and agreeing upon joint projects and activities with a view to establish and foster partnership between the two organisations and deepen their cooperation.
About the African Development Bank Group:
The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) is Africa's premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). On the ground in 44 African countries with an external office in Japan, the AfDB contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states. For more information: http://www.afdb.org/en
About the Arab Monetary Fund:
The Arab Monetary Fund, a regional Arab institution founded in 1976, has started operations in 1977. Its 22 member countries are: Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Tunisia, Algeria, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Comoros, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Yemen. The AMF's mission is to lay the monetary foundation of Arab economic integration and to accelerate the process of economic development of its member countries, through providing training opportunities and financial and technical assistance to member countries to correct balance of payments disequilibria and implement structural reforms towards the modernization of their financial systems, and offering technical assistance to banking and monetary institutions in Arab countries with the objective of developing and strengthening their financial markets. For more information: www.amf.org.ae
