Arab-African Co-Financing Partnership Aims To Scale Investment Across Africa

The Arab Coordination Group and the African Development Bank Group have agreed a new strategic phase of cooperation, centred on larger joint financing and stronger mobilisation of private capital for Africa. The understanding seeks to speed up Africa’s economic transformation by shifting from isolated projects to coordinated, continent-wide investments that match national and regional development priorities across key sectors.

This new direction was confirmed during a High-Level Consultation Meeting held at the African Development Bank’s headquarters in Abidjan. The partners used the meeting to create a shared platform for Arab-African financial collaboration. The approach aims to organise co-investment at scale and align it with country strategies, rather than relying on scattered interventions that risk slower impact.

The joint declaration adopted at the end of the meeting sets out a political vision and links it to operational guidance, including specific priority areas for cooperation. It introduces institutional follow-up mechanisms to steer the next stage of the Arab-African partnership. The document also underlines the African Development Fund’s central role in helping low-income and fragile states through concessional finance.

As part of the declaration, the Arab Coordination Group and the African Development Bank agree to design a detailed financing and operational partnership framework, planned for consideration in 2026. The framework will clarify how co-financing will work in practice, how project pipelines will be coordinated, and how mutual reliance and joint programming will be organised. It also calls for closer collaboration between Arab Coordination Group institutions and the African Development Fund.

The consultation takes place while Africa faces a growing development financing shortfall and faces urgent pressure to secure large-scale capital. Priority areas include energy access, climate resilience, food security and regional integration, along with growth led by the private sector. Both groups aim to anchor Arab-African co-financing by combining balance sheets, long-term and counter-cyclical capacity, sector knowledge and existing country platforms.

Participants examined ways to improve joint project preparation and harmonise financing tools, while also deepening policy dialogue. They looked at how to use each institution’s comparative strengths and support country-led agendas, ensuring projects deliver measurable results and durable resilience. Discussions were also linked to the African Development Bank’s New African Financial Architecture, which seeks stronger financial sovereignty by better connecting development finance institutions, guarantee providers, insurers, capital markets and private investors across the continent.

With inputs from SPA