African Development Bank Hosts Partnership Day With International Finance Corporation

9 August 2018
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African Development Bank (Abidjan)

Following a series of meetings between the African Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation during the Africa CEO FORUM last March and the recent Annual Meetings in Busan, the Bank hosted a Partnership Day with IFC within the Bank's premises.

The event took place on Thursday, 26 July 2018, co-chaired by the Vice-President Private Sector, Infrastructure & Industrialization, Pierre Guislain and IFC's Vice President for the Middle East and Africa, Sérgio Pimenta. The Bank's Senior Vice President, Charles Boamah opened the event, also attended by the Vice-President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, Amadou Hott, alongside other Non-Sovereign Operations Directors and IFC senior management.

The Bank and IFC have a long-standing partnership, as part of their efforts to drive sustainable growth and achieve the greatest possible development impact. Both institutions have taken concrete and practical steps to support governments' efforts and develop prioritized pipeline of economically viable and bankable projects.

In his opening remarks, Boamah noted "This Partnership Day offers another opportunity for both institutions to discuss issues of common interest aiming at accelerating private sector development on the continent."

The meeting started with a two-hour session on pipeline sharing and development. It was a unique opportunity for each sector from both institutions to present and exchange on their respective pipeline of projects. The sectors covered were energy, transport, mining, agriculture, financial sector, industrialization, ICT and social.

Another key highlight of the day was the session on fragile states, a top priority for both institutions. IFC presented its Fragile and Conflict-affected States (FCS) Africa program, established in 2014, to support and help grow IFC's investment and advisory engagement in Africa FCS. The Bank also presented its Fragile States Facility. Both Development Finance Institutions agreed on the need for leveraging their respective expertise to intervene with scale in fragile states as a mean to promote stability and build resilience. Kodeidja Diallo, Director NSO & Private Sector Support stated: "Opportunities exist to support private sector development in fragile states by facilitating private investment and addressing enabling environment constraints through joint upstream work."

The African Development Bank also presented the objectives of the Africa Investment Forum (AIF) - an initiative that it is championing. As Amadou Hott said, "This platform will enable investors to meet decision-makers and will facilitate bankable projects that have the capacity to transform the continent"

The meeting ended on a high note, with officials from both institutions reiterating their support for the initiative, which should become a yearly event, and committing to take concrete actions for actual implementation. "We should focus on growing a pipeline of projects together by having touchpoints and follow-up on each sector," said Sergio Pimenta. Guislain added, "We have to build a more powerful partnership to focus and work on specific projects."

More pictures of the event on the following link: https://flic.kr/s/aHskFp2FZQ

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

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