The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved the Desert to Power G5 Sahel Financing Facility, covering Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. The Bank envisages to commit up to $379.6 million in financing and technical assistance for the facility over the next seven years.

The coalition for a sustainable and inclusive recovery of the private sector, an international group of 20 development finance institutions that came together in 2020, today announced commitments of over $5.55 billion of financing to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa between mid-2020 and end of 2021, beating their set target of $4 billion over the period.

The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund has approved a $4.3 million grant to support statistics development in Somalia.

The Board of the African Development Fund, the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group, approved the grant on 14 February. The Statistics Development Support Project for Somalia will entail providing technical assistance and training staff in the Somalia National Bureau of Statistics and the Statistics Departments of Hirshabelle, Galmudug and Jubaland States of Somalia.

African Development Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina will attend the sixth European Union-African Union (EU-AU) summit in Brussels this week. He is expected to call for greater access to Covid-19 vaccines and the reallocation of $100 billion in International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to Africa. The Bank Group chief will urge that these SDRs be channelled through the African Development Bank, as a prescribed holder of SDRs.