The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and the Arab Coordination Group (ACG) have unveiled a new phase of their partnership aimed at mobilizing private capital and accelerating Africa’s economic transformation, as the continent faces a widening financing gap.
At a high-level consultation meeting held at the AfDB’s headquarters in Abidjan, the two institutions agreed to move from fragmented cooperation toward programmatic, large-scale co-investment aligned with Africa’s development priorities. The platform is designed to channel capital into energy access, climate resilience, food security, regional integration and private-sector-led growth.
The discussions focused on how Arab-African co-financing could be anchored by combining balance sheets, long-term and counter-cyclical financing capacities, sectoral expertise and country platforms. Participants explored ways to harmonize financing approaches, strengthen policy dialogue, and support country-led agendas while ensuring investments deliver measurable impact and resilience.
The initiative is framed within the AfDB’s push to strengthen Africa’s financial sovereignty through its New African Financial Architecture (NAFA), which seeks to better integrate development finance institutions, guarantee providers, insurers, capital markets and private investors.
The meeting culminated in the adoption of a Joint Declaration on a Strategic Partnership between the AfDB and ACG, setting out priority areas for cooperation and institutional follow-up mechanisms. As a next step, the partners will develop a Financing and Operational Partnership Framework in 2026 to define modalities for co-financing, pipeline coordination and joint programming.
The declaration also underscored the central role of the African Development Fund (ADF), the AfDB’s concessional financing arm, in supporting low-income and fragile countries, and called for closer collaboration between ACG institutions and the ADF.
The partnership reflects the collective ambition of Arab financiers to expand their engagement with Africa in a more coordinated and catalytic manner, positioning the continent to attract larger volumes of public and private investment.
