The Bank Group Participates in the Africa Partnership Conference 2016

29 September 2016
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African Development Bank (Abidjan)

The Africa Partnership Conference 2016 was inaugurated on September 20, 2016 in Mauritius by the country's Finance and Economic Development Minister, Pravind Kumar Jugnauth. The Board of Investment (BOI) of Mauritius hosted the conference in collaboration with the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), under the theme: "Creating Shared Value through Sustainable Investment".

The two-day conference aimed at identifying concrete investment and business opportunities across the African continent and provided a networking platform for international investors in Africa. The Conference also deliberated on how to tackle critical issues affecting trade and investment in Africa, as well as opportunities for participants to gain access to heads of investment promotion agencies across the continent.

The strong level of economic growth achieved in Africa in recent years has fueled demand for infrastructure services including energy, transportation, air and maritime connectivity as well as urban infrastructure. However, Africa's annual infrastructure requirement until 2020 is estimated at USD 100 billion.

The Conference provided a unique platform to address the infrastructural funding gap, which is a major constraint to optimizing Foreign Direct Investment flows in Africa, estimated to be USD 54 billion in 2015.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) participated in a panel discussion themed: "Financing for Growth", aimed to reaffirm the crucial role of financial institutions, development banks and the equity capital market in plugging Africa's funding gap. The session highlighted how portfolios can be diversified to mitigate risks of investment in new and emerging frontiers and showcased Mauritius as the preferred risk mitigation platform for investments into Africa. Valerie Dabady Liverani, Manager for the Resource Mobilization & External Finance Department, participated as a Panelist in the session and spoke about the role of the African Development Fund (ADF) in providing finance to projects in Africa.

Senior government officials, including heads of state, ministers, investment promotion agency leaders, policy-makers from Africa, global business leaders (CEOs, CFOs), leading international, regional journalists, among others, attended the meeting.

Speakers at the conference also included Mosad Elmissiry, Head, Energy Programme, NEPAD; Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, Senior Economic Officer, Economics and Statistics Division, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva; Yusuf Atiku Abdalla, Regional Trade Advisor, COMESA, at The Commonwealth; Kanini Mutooni, Director, Investment and ICT USAID Contractor, East Africa Trade Investment Hub; Georges Chung, Senior Economic Adviser, Office of the Prime Minister of Mauritius, among a host of other renowned persons.

Read the original article on African Development Bank (AfDB).

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