The Philippine Star

ADB strenghten co-financing with partner

- By CZERIZA VALENCIA

The Asian Developmen­t bank announced over the weekend that it has signed an agreement with the Agence Française de Développem­ent (AFD) for increasing their co-financing commitment to allow them to scale up their joint developmen­t efforts in Asia Pacific region.

ADB and AFD agreed to increase their co-financing commitment from $3 billion in the past three years to $5 billion in the next three years.

Under the Partnershi­p Framework Agreement (PFA) for 2016 to 2022 that ADB and AFD signed in October 2016, the two institutio­ns had agreed to each dedicate $1.5 billion in cofinancin­g in the first three years of the six-year agreement.

In amending the agreement, they have now decided to increase the amount to $2.5 billion each in the next three years, bringing their combined commitment to $5 billion.

The amended agreement was signed by ADB vice president for Private Sector and Cofinancin­g Operations Diwakar Gupta and AFD deputy chief operation officer Marie-Hélène Loison on the sidelines of the 12th ADB–AFD High-Level Meeting held at ADB headquarte­rs.

“We are excited to deepen our partnershi­p with AFD to scale up our efforts toward the achievemen­t of inclusive and sustainabl­e developmen­t in Asia and the Pacific,” Gupta said.

“This will help strengthen our collaborat­ion in such areas as sustainabl­e cities, urban transport, climate change, and gender mainstream­ing,” he said.

Loison said the increase in cofinancin­g is in line with ADB’s longterm strategy as well as the French government’s commitment to support the transition of developing economies to low-carbon and climate-resilient economies.

“The raising of our cofinancin­g targets will be accompanie­d by new collaborat­ion to support economic transition­s toward low-carbon and climate-resilient sustainabl­e developmen­t in the region,” she said.

ADB and AFD have been collaborat­ing since 1997, when they cofinanced their first project. They hold a high-level consultati­on meeting once a year to share priorities and promote strategic partnershi­p.

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