The Bank Group’s Long Term Development Strategy

MTS will Continue to Guide the Bank Group’s Activities in the Long Term

The sectoral priorities identified by the MTS – infrastructure, governance and private sector development – will continue to be relevant for the Bank for many years to come. In addition:

• The issue of state fragility continues to be a serious challenge, although cross-border conflicts and civil wars have receded in Africa.
• Building Africa’s human and technical capacities will also remain a key ingredient of the Bank’s policy thrust. The Bank will pay attention to key global public goods such as the environment and to research and transfer of knowledge, to ensure that the institution’s efforts bear fruit.
• The Bank clearly has comparative advantage in helping African countries integrate economically. Regional integration will continue to be an important consideration for the Bank.

Tackling New Challenges

Climate Change: Important future impacts on the African economy are expected to emanate from the effects of climate change. Africa’s ecosystems are vulnerable to the threat of calamitous changes in weather patterns, and growth and development can also be strongly affected. The Bank is planning to adapt its involvement in this area.

Non-Sovereign Operations will Increase in Tandem with Sovereign Operations

The last five years have witnessed a sharp increase in private sector operations undertaken by the Bank. From less than UA 200 million in 2004, the volume of private sector operations rose to about UA 1 billion toward the end of the decade. Going forward, in both MICs and LICs, the central element of the private sector operations strategy will remain the selection and prioritization of projects so as to maximize development impact. 

• The Bank Group will enhance collaboration between its public and private sector windows especially though PPPs, to deepen complementarities at the country level.
• More economic and sector work and coordinated programming within the country assistance strategies.
• Within MIC/blend countries, coordinated country programming will also optimize the allocation of available headroom between sovereign and non-sovereign operations.

Innovative Approaches to Leveraging Bank Group Financing

Looking ahead, the issue of sustainable commitment of resources to countries will become increasingly important without the Bank compromising its prudential ratios and AAA rating, especially as the current available resources remain limited relative to the large demand.

• The Bank Group plans to deploy innovative approaches to leverage and extend its financing envelope and enable it to continue supporting its regional member countries in a sustainable manner, by using its catalytic role in attracting third party financing to Africa.
• Co-financing partnerships with other international development institutions, notably the World Bank, as well as bilaterals will be further developed.
• These partnerships will take the form of burden sharing, with the Bank Group taking part in initiatives to mobilize private financing, a recent example being the Global Trade Liquidity Program.
• More guarantees and other credit substitutes as alternatives to direct loans. Such recently provided a partial guarantee for the Government of Seychelles as an input into a sizeable debt restructuring operation.

Results and Monitoring: Issues in the Long Term

More than ever the Bank Group is committed to strengthening its contribution to development results on the continent and to reporting more systematically on this contribution.

• Improved internal effectiveness will allow the Bank Group to both enhance its own delivery as well as play a greater role in strengthening client countries’ capacity to manage for results.
• The Bank Group is stepping into a leadership role on managing for development results within the broader international arena including within the ambit of the OECD.