The African Development Bank Group is working closely with key regional financial partners to establish a Pan-African Financial Coordination Platform. The landmark platform is designed to foster greater synergy among African financial institutions and ensure the efficient deployment of resources.
African Development Bank Group President Sidi Ould Tah met with leaders of African development finance institutions (DFIs) and private sector financial partners at the group's headquarters in Abidjan on Wednesday 19 November. This series of meetings followed an earlier high-level working engagement with heads of African securities exchanges on Tuesday. The newly mooted initiative is expected to emerge after extensive consultations with a diverse range of financial industry experts.
"A new framework for our partnership work means we rely more on you...our countries are in need of huge resources," Dr Ould Tah told the heads of Africa's leading development finance institutions, which included the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, the Eastern & Southern African Trade & Development Bank, the West African Development Bank, the Africa Finance Corporation and Shelter Afrique.
The proposed platform will enhance efficiency through shared project pipelines, harmonized technical standards, and coordinated implementation timelines. Development finance institutions are crucial allies for its success, uniquely positioned to address financing gaps and drive development at national and regional levels, Dr Ould Tah stressed.
"Regional DFIs are closest to the beneficiaries," he noted, adding that strengthening the capital base of DFIs to enhance their ability to deliver on their mandates, was essential.
Participants in the meeting welcomed the initiative, making suggestions, sharing success points and areas to address.
Admassu Tadesse, President and Managing Director of the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank Group acknowledged the financial capacity of multilateral development banks such as the African Development Bank Group. "They know the key instruments that can put winds in our sails."
Tadesse called for a standby liquidity mechanism to support regional multilateral development finance institutions reduce costs, as well as the use of callable capital guarantees: "We are looking for capacity, innovation and to leverage the triple A rating of MDBs. We are always looking for affordable financing to deliver impact," he stated.
Serge Ekue, President of the West African Development Bank, highlighted the importance of the African Development Bank Group's AAA credit rating, noting that the impact of political instability such as five coups in West Africa in the past 5 years, had led to the downgrading of many countries' ratings. For his institution, this had been avoided through maintaining sufficient equity, he said.
According to Ekue, regional development finance institutions worked closer to the ground and there was the need to avoid duplication or overlapping of efforts, and for clearer operational frameworks. "We are small enough to care, but big enough to execute," he said.
The president of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, Dr George Agyekum Donkor, said larger institutions such as the African Development Bank Group were needed to support the smaller ones with their credibility, as well as through instruments such as syndication and co-lending schemes.
"There must be synergy between the financial institutions," Donkor said.
For Thierno-Habib Hann, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nairobi-based Pan-African housing development financier Shelter Afrique, better coordination would ensure maximum outcomes in resource mobilization. He reiterated the role of multilateral development banks as crucial partners supporting regional institutions in accelerating development.
Hann stressed their role in building capacity, citing pipeline development and project preparation facilities within the Bank Group and its presence on the ground. "We are really working together for large-scale transformation projects, we have great ambitions," Hann noted.
Speaking on behalf of Samaila D. Zubairu, President and Chief Executive Officer of Africa Finance Corporation, Sameh Shenouda, said that breaking the silos and enhancing cooperation was critical. "There are not enough bankable projects, not enough equity resources," he said.
Shenouda underlined the importance of public relations and speaking as a collective. "We need to consciously talk together, have joint events at major gatherings such as the United Nations General Assembly. "Getting the Africa story out together jointly will be very impactful."
African Development Bank Group's Vice President for Private Sector Infrastructure & Industrialization, Solomon Quaynor, said he had taken copious notes from the working session.
"We can work together a whole lot more, do this as a system...that system is not only we, working with you, but you working with others," Quaynor stressed. "We are going to have conversations bilaterally and separately with this renewed vision, we will see the best way to allocate capital. We are going to mobilise partners."
Summing up the deliberations, Dr Ould Tah said the discussions had been enlightening. He said a task force would be set up to work on key issues emerging from the consultations: strengthening equity, derisking, subsidiarity, avoiding duplication, concessional loans, and liquidity for development finance institutions.
To this end, Dr Ould Tah also announced he would engage with the private sector and credit rating agencies in London in mid-December, immediately after the final meeting of the Seventeenth Replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF-17), the Bank Group's concessional lending arm. That meeting will be hosted by the governments of the United Kingdom and Ghana from 15 to 16 December 2025.
