The African Development Bank Director for Regional Integration Ms. Moono Mupotola met with the SADC Executive Secretary, Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax on the 24 March 2018, in the margins of the SADC Council of Ministers meeting, in Pretoria, South Africa.
The meeting took stock of progress being made in the implementation of agreed actions between the Secretariat and the African Development Bank, following the Aide Memoire signed in February 2018, where the Bank agreed to among other things, support SADC in the identification and categorization of priority projects from SADC’s Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan, development of bankable value chains projects, development of financial instruments, and Operationalization of the SADC Regional Development Fund.
Her Excellency Dr. Tax, while appreciating progress made thus far, emphasised the necessity for SADC Member States to see the benefits of their membership to the African Development Bank, through among others, the implementation of tangible regional projects, which will contribute to socio-economic development of SADC economies. She also called upon the Bank to help expand the capacity of the Development Finance Institutions in Member States given their role in project preparation and resource mobilisation.
In her response, Ms. Mupotola acknowledged the list of infrastructure projects received from the SADC Secretariat and reiterated the Bank’s commitment to provide technical support to identify, prioritise and develop infrastructure and value chain projects in order to develop them to bankability, and to also identify various financial instruments for use by Member States to mobilise resources. Furthermore, Ms. Mupotola informed the SADC Executive Secretary about the upcoming Africa Investment Forum to be organised by the Bank scheduled for November 2018, in South Africa. Both parties agreed that the forum will offer opportunity to mobilise resources for some of the SADC priority projects, and in this regard agreed to work together.
