Arab-African Co-financing Partnership To Scale Investment In Africa

The Arab Coordination Group and the African Development Bank Group launch a new phase of cooperation aimed at larger co-financing, stronger mobilisation of private investment, and support for Africa’s economic transformation through programmatic, large-scale operations aligned with African development priorities agreed during a High-Level Consultation Meeting in Abidjan.

The meeting ends with a joint declaration that sets a shared political vision for the Arab-African partnership and converts it into clear operational guidance, including priority areas for collaboration, principles for institutional follow-up, and steps toward a structured framework to direct future joint financing and programming.

Participants meet at a time when African countries face a widening development financing gap and require substantial new resources for energy access, climate resilience, food security, regional integration, and private sector growth, prompting both groups to seek more coordinated Arab African co-financing anchored in shared platforms and joint strategies.

Discussions examine how the Arab Coordination Group and the African Development Bank Group can combine balance sheets, long-term and counter-cyclical financing tools, and sector knowledge to attract larger public and private capital flows, while also supporting country-led development agendas and ensuring that projects deliver measurable impact and durable resilience on the ground.

Delegates look at specific ways to improve joint project preparation, harmonise lending and co-financing approaches, and deepen policy dialogue, while using each institution’s comparative advantages and existing country platforms to streamline pipelines and coordinate investments in line with Africa’s agreed development priorities and regional programmes.

The consultation aligns with the African Development Bank Group’s effort to reinforce Africa’s financial sovereignty through the New African Financial Architecture, which aims to integrate development finance institutions, guarantee providers, insurers, capital markets, and private investors into a more coherent ecosystem that can support sustainable development financing across the continent.

The joint declaration calls for the design of a financing and operational partnership framework, to be considered in 2026, setting out detailed arrangements for co-financing, pipeline coordination, mutual reliance mechanisms, and regular joint programming cycles between Arab Coordination Group institutions and the African Development Bank Group.

The declaration highlights the African Development Fund, the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group, as central for support to low-income and fragile countries, and urges exploration of closer collaboration between Arab Coordination Group institutions and the African Development Fund to enhance assistance to the continent’s most vulnerable economies.

With inputs from SPA