The Joint Africa Institute (JAI) recently in Tunis organized a High-Level Seminar on African Finance for the 21st Century. The seminar focused on financial sector development in sub-Sahara Africa and its contribution to economic development on the continent.

The session focused on three themes: the development of financial institutions and markets; efficiency and soundness in the financial sector, and practical policymaking in weak institutional environments.

Tunis, 7 February 2010 - The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved on Thursday, 3 February 2011 in Tunis, a USD 25-million senior private sector loan to finance the KivuWatt project in Rwanda. This project has been developed by ContourGlobal, a global power and energy company headquartered in New York. Along with a consortium of development finance partners, AfDB will finance the first large scale private sector investment in power generation in Rwanda.   

Representatives of the AfDB, the AU Commission, the World Bank, NEPAD Secretariat and those of 12 RECs met in Cape Town to discuss ways of strengthening the capacity of RECS and key regional bodies with a view to promoting and leading efforts aimed at fostering regional integration within sub-regions and across the continent. The meeting characterized by influential comments from the RECs, extensive discussions, occasional humor, and powerpoint presentations by the AfDB and the World Bank, concluded with a consensus to engage the AU among other key actions.

Over 30 participants from the AfDB, RECs, USAID, DBSA, the World Bank and SADC held a three-day workshop on capacity development for infrastructure provision in Cape Town, South Africa. The workshop was born out of the idea that for regional trade and infrastructure systems to be well integrated, technical, financial and regulatory issues at the regional and continental levels had to be addressed. It entered its final day with presentations on capacity building within existing facilities, programs, public private partnership uinterface and needs.

The First Joint Annual Meetings of AU Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance and ECA African Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development has taken place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last week. The theme for the Conference was "Meeting Africa’s New Challenges in the 21st Century". This unique event is a result of the proposal endorsed by the 12th Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union at its meeting in Accra last July.