Browsing: Africa Development Bank (AfDB

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  • Organizations like the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have pioneered several African investment opportunities.
  • Mitsui & Co Ltd has announced plans to resume constructing the multibillion-dollar Mozambique natural gas project.
  • Toyota Tshusho covers automobiles, pharmaceuticals, beverages, and energy, employing over 22000 Africans.

Africa’s international relations are strengthening as the Japanese government seeks to shore up investment opportunities in Africa. The African Development Bank Group President Dr Akinwumi Adesina has been wooing investors from Japan to trade with Africa. His primary objective was to showcase the enormous investment opportunities within the continent that would improve its development in the long run.

The move comes even as Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida led his country’s charge with a tour of four critical economic points in Africa; Kenya, Egypt, Ghana and Mozambique.

A renewed Africa-Japan partnership confirmed by AfDB

The AfDB has been on a mission marketing various investment opportunities across African countries

GuarantCo is one of the six partners that make up the Africa Co-Guarantee Platform. Others are the African Development Bank, African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI), African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), GuarantCo (part of PIDG, the Private Infrastructure Development Group), the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit Insurance (ICIEC), and Afreximbank.

Speaking recently at the Platform’s Steering Committee Meeting, Afreximbank’s Director of Guarantees and Specialized Finance Kofi Asumadu-Addo, said, “…this is a critical moment, and the CGP is needed more than ever.”

He went on to point out that the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Ukraine crisis have resulted in macroeconomic challenges that require urgent action and it is only by working with large organs like the AfDB that action can be taken.…

Over the past decade Africa has been rife with infrastructure developments that hitherto continue to steadily transform the continent, spurring the much-needed economic development. This is well aligned to aspiration 2 of Africa’s Agenda 2063, which advocates for ‘an integrated continent politically united based on the ideas of Pan Africanism and the vision of African Renaissance’ with the key priority area of developing world class infrastructure that crisscrosses Africa.

Inadequate infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa has remained an existential hurdle to the continent’s achievement of robust economic growth. According to a report by Deloitte, this status quo has reduced national economic growth by two percentage points every year, and cut business productivity by as much as 40 per cent. In reiteration, another report by McKinsey and Company highlights that Africa faces an infrastructure paradox, in that there is need and availability of funding together with a large pipeline of potential projects

African Energy Chamber  (www.EnergyChamber.org) Executive Chairman NJ Ayuk will attend the Ninth Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-IX) in Cabo Verde on the 13th – 17th of September 2021 where he will contribute to and drive a collaborative discussion on what a just energy transition looks like for Africa.

Focused on ensuring Africa’s climate change mitigation strategies coincide with, rather than restrict, Africa’s economic development, Ayuk will bring a valuable perspective to the conference.

Organized by the Economic Commission for Africa and the Government of Cabo Verde, with partners the African Union Commission, the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank, CCDA-IX will take place under the theme ‘Towards a just transition that delivers jobs, prosperity and climate resilience in Africa: leveraging the green and blue economy.’ The conference serves as a prelude to the Conference of Parties to the United …

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) has approved a $6 million grant to launch the initial phase of the Desert to Power West Africa Regional Energy Program. Desert to Power, an initiative led by the Bank, is expected to transform the Sahel by harnessing the region’s abundant solar potential.

The grant funding, sourced from the African Development Fund’s 15 (ADF-15) Regional Operations Envelope, will go to the West African Power Pool (WAPP) to conduct pre-feasibility studies for the construction of the Sahel Transmission Backbone that will link regional solar parks in all five countries. The Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) will also receive financing to expand decentralized energy systems as part of an ECOWAS Regional Mini-Grid Program. The board approval was made on 1 July 2021.

Also Read: Boost For Kenya’s ICT Sector As Kenyatta

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 17 – The African Development Bank has announced new rounds of funding for Zambia and Egypt.

In Zambia, AfDB has approved a $1.4 million grant from the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program to reduce malnutrition among the Southern African nation’s most vulnerable households.

The grant will be directed into the Mitigating Impacts of Covid-19 on Household Food Security Project and is expected to create about 150 permanent skilled or semi-skilled positions and 40 part-time unskilled jobs in crop, livestock, and fisheries value chains.

AfDB says the project will also supply inputs for crops, livestock, and aquaculture enterprises to promote good agricultural practices and increase food production, as well as a capacity-building component.

Commenting on the Zambian funding, AfDB’s Director of Agriculture and Agro-industry Martin Fregene said increased food supply resulting from additional grant funds will lead to more jobs, improved quality of life, and reduction of …

The African Development Bank climate finance continuous to gain ground as the bank in 2019, committed 3.5 billion across the continent to finance climate change mitigation and adaptation projects.

This is according to the Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) Climate Finance Report 2020, which noted that AFDB’s climate financing mostly targeted renewable energy and resilient agriculture sectors.

According to the report, the climate financing represents 35 per cent of the total the 2019 approvals of projects worth US$ 10.2 billion, representing an increase of 0.3 per cent over 2018 and 26 per cent over 2016.

“As African economies face the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, relaxing action or redirecting financial resources away from climate change will further exacerbate these impacts in diverse and complex ways,” said Anthony Nyong, AfDB Director for Climate Change and Green Growth.

The pan-African financial institution in its report on climate finance published in 2019 pledged …

The Green Cluster of SMEs in Côte d’Ivoire awarded the African Development Bank (AfDB) a prize for the best technical and financial partner committed to promoting the green economy and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) toward a low-carbon transition.

AFDB was awarded at the Green Awards, which was launched in 2019 under the sponsorship of the Ivorian Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development Prof. Joseph Seka Seka, with support from Félix Miézan Anoblé, Côte d’Ivoire’s minister of trade, industry and promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Green Cluster organised a follow-up event, despite the pandemic to recognize the continuing importance of sustainable development, the green economy and other measures to fight climate change.

The award acknowledges the actors that have made a significant contribution to the development of green SMEs and the emergence of a sustainable low-carbon green economy resilient to climate change.

“As an innovative approach …

The African Development Bank (AFDB) approved grants worth $25 million to Somalia to boost its national budget efforts to mitigate the national and regional impacts of the pandemic.

The grants comprised of $15.06 million grant from the Regional Operations Envelope and a $10.04 million grant from Pillar 1 of the Bank’s Transition Support Facility which is under the bank’s COVID-19 Response Facility.

“It is the first time the Bank is leveraging the Regional Operation Envelope resources for a Budget Support Operation. This approach was pertinent to ensure that Somalia has adequate resources to contain the spread of the disease in its territory and limit cross-border impacts that pose serious risks for health, social and economic development for the Horn of Africa sub-region,” said Nnenna Nwabufo the Acting Bank Director General for East Africa.

The grant will be used to carry out three interlinked responses to the COVID-19 pandemic that will …

The African fashion industry is hanging on by a thread and stitch, as it continues to suffer plummeting revenues in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, swiftly thrusting it into economic distress. According to the research group Euromonitor, the apparel and footwear industry is cumulatively estimated to be worth $31 billion. However, the vibrant industry is teetering on the edge of a precipice, with a plethora of challenges that have brewed up a storm, with rippling effects across the supply chain due to its interconnected nature. Covid-19 has just stirred up a hornets’ nest in the industry that was already on high alert. 

Prior to the pandemic, the fashion industry was generating $2.5 trillion in global annual revenues, but is set to contract by 27 to 30% in 2020, based on a joint report dubbed ‘The State of Fashion 2020, Coronavirus update’