(from left to right): H.E. Ashraf El-Shihy, Egypt’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chair of the ADEA Steering Committee; Ms. Oley Dibba-Wadda, ADEA Executive Secretary; Mr. Peter Materu, ADEA Executive Committee Chair.

Egypt’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Ashraf El-Shihy, has been elected, Chair of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Steering Committee (SC). He replaces the former Chairperson, Cameroon’s Minister of Education Alim Youssouf Hadidja.

The African Development Bank Group approved, on Wednesday, December 16, USD 138 million^[1] of loans and grants toward a project which will help develop the energy sector in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda through the construction of the Ruzizi III Hydropower Plant and associated transmission line. The project is expected to increase electricity trading between the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (ECGLC) through the supply of reliable and sustainable clean energy.

The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) approved a US $580,000 preparation grant for the expansion of Green Energy & Biofuels (GEB) Bio-refinery project in Nigeria. The project is a pilot of Small & Medium Entrepreneurship Fundamentals (SMEFunds), a social enterprise based in Lagos, and the first bio-energy cooking fuel production facility and distribution network in Nigeria.

The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF) on 15^th December 2015 approved a grant worth USD 21 million to finance Mozambique’s Economic Governance and Inclusive Growth Program Phase II (EGIGP).

The program is part of a three year programmatic series, covering the fiscal years 2014, 2015 and 2016. It builds on the first phase of the operation, which was approved in 2014 and has since been disbursed. 

The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) convened a high-level ministerial briefing meeting on the negotiations taking place in the UN Climate Change Conference (COP20). The representatives of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) presented the status of the negotiations and Africa’s key messages were conveyed. The outcomes of the negotiations will feed into the new global climate change agreement which should be signed next year in Paris and should enter into effect by 2020.