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From 29 May to 13 June, the AFD will be organising an “Ideas for Development” cycle of five interdisciplinary conferences on a range of topic areas. These events will provide a framework for discussions on development issues with numerous experts with a professional or personal interest in this field. They are intended as a new forum for debates and meetings between researchers, students, professionals from a wide range of fields, and the general public.

The first three conferences, described below, will focus on Africa’s economy and its performance, opportunities, stumbling blocks and prospects.

2nd conference : "Macro-economics and politics in Africa"

31 May, in partnership with Politique africaine and Afrique contemporaine magazines

Although macro-economics is an area usually addressed as a theoretical corpus developed by economists and technical public policy experts, it can also be seen as above all an expression of politics. This meeting aims to offer a different perspective on macro-economics, as the theatre of social struggles and conflicts between groups that offers material to gain a better understanding of the logic of the State and the mechanisms of power.  A “bottom-up” analysis of the technical aspects of macro-economics can shed light on the emergence of new players, new instruments and new positions and relationships of power – in other words, provide new ways of approaching the realities of African societies.

Speakers
Béatrice Hibou, CNRS, Sciences Po / CERI, FASOPO
Boris Samuel, SciencesPo CERI, FASOPO

To be followed by a debate with the audience. 

Conference on 31 May 2011, 10 am to 12.30 pm at the AFD, 5 rue Roland Barthes, Paris 12°.
Admission free subject to seating capacity and prior registration

Find out more and register for the conference

The proposals made by the study aim to reduce the average cost of migrant remittances and to optimize their impact on the development of African countries. They specifically focus on improving linked bank accounts (dual bank accounts for migrants in their country of residence and in their home country with activities coordinated between the banks of both countries), the development of innovative financial products, support for electronic payment technologies and the adaptation of regulatory and legislative frameworks.

What are the lessons learned from the study?

Due to their importance for the recipient communities, the flows of money from migrants tend to remain stable and are less sensitive to changes in the economic climate.

How to optimize remittances and their impact on development

• Reducing the cost of migrant remittances will increase their contribution to development.
• An understanding of the local context is the key to reducing the cost of remittances and informal flows.
• It would appear that the cost of remittances in the Maghreb region and franc zone has stabilized at a level that remains too high.
• While the profile of actors is becoming more diverse, there is still a need to develop the range of services in order to be more competitive.
• An overhaul of regulatory frameworks, with the aim of promoting diversification in the range of services and financial products, would help increase competition and reduce the cost of remittances.
• Four types of financial and technological services and products can contribute to reducing the cost of remittances.
• Actors, services, tools, new technologies…: there are ultimately five areas to be explored in order to expand and strengthen the range of banking and non-banking products and encourage both a reduction in the cost of remittances and co-development.

Increasing threat to food security for Africans

The 2008 food riots revealed the number of challenges facing Africa in terms of food security:

• the uncontrolled increase in urban populations, which rely on food imports subject to price volatility in agricultural raw materials;
• the chronic dependence on emergency food aid, particularly in destabilized regions such as the Sahel zone;
• the practice of land grabbing by speculative investment funds to the detriment of the interests of village producers;
• the lack of political will to establish regional strategies based on farmers’ production sectors;
• private agricultural companies and cooperatives’ lack of own resources to increase their production and modernize industries.

African Agriculture Fund: a first

The international community has mobilized to address these issues via various initiatives. For the first time, European partners (AFD, European Union, Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Italian cooperation), African partners (ADB, BOAD, EBID, DBSA and the AGRA Foundation) and UN agencies (IFAD and UNIDO) have pooled their resources and expertise within a single investment fund (African Agriculture Fund or AAF) in order promote agricultural investments in Africa.

A palm plantation in Ghana, © AFD Agency in Ghana

Anti-money laundering and sound land management

This pan-African fund was quoted in the Final Declaration of the G20 Agriculture Meeting in June 2011. It is expected to total over $200m by July 2012 and operates throughout the agricultural value chain (production, processing and distribution), with priority given to the primary sector (cereals, livestock, aquaculture, fruit production…).

The fund’s procedures cover compliance with strict social and environmental standards, systematic due diligence on anti-money laundering and corruption and the application of a code of sound land management.

Two AAF projects already underway

AAF has already invested in two projects: the first aims to refurbish a palm oil processing plant in Sierra Leone via a $10m investment alongside financing from Finnfund . This project is part of the international community’s post conflict initiative. It involves over 8,000 independent planters and will increase production destined for the domestic market.

The fund’s second investment, worth $20m, will extend an egg production farm in Zambia and develop the different sector stakeholders (from soya production for poultry feed to distribution points, including storage improvement).

The next investments are expected to be made in French-Speaking West Africa ( Côte d’Ivoire ) and in a wide range of sectors (mineral water, sugar, crop protection…).

The fund has two instruments which more specifically target small producers or entrepreneurs: a $30m subsidiary fund earmarked for agricultural SMEs and a $15m technical assistance facility to subsidize the professional integration of small producers, capacity building and the development of services for SMEs.

Farmers, artisans, self-employed professionals and small traders

The idea is to target the professional clientele at the SGBS that comprises farmers, artisans, self-employed professionals, traders and very small businesses with a turnover of less than 500 M FCFA.

Financial services for this market segment, whose needs cannot be covered either by micro-credit schemes or by classic banking services, are grouped together as “meso-finance”.

To meet these “meso-financing” needs, the SGBS has already set up a department to cater for the “professionals market”. The partnership with the AFD will enable the SGBS to identify these clients’ needs more precisely and to strengthen the bank’s human resources, analysis tools and products to meet demand.

A 50% increase in credit supply

By applying this approach, the SGBS aims to increase both credit volumes and loans granted to small Senegalese businesses by more than 50% within four years.

The agreement was signed by SGBS Deputy Director Patrick Vernet and the AFD Director for Dakar, Denis Castaing.

During the signing, Ibrahim Mayaki, Chief Executive Officer of the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) and former Prime Minister of Niger, and Yves Boudot, Director of AFD’s Sub-Saharan Africa Department, had the opportunity to discuss – in addition to ICT development in Africa – the headway made by the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), an initiative led by the African Union Commission, NEPAD and African Development Bank.

AFD’s long-standing support to NEPAD’s New Information Technologies initiatives

Since 2003, AFD has been supporting NEPAD’s activities in the telecoms sector (e-Africa Program) via an earmarked grant and the joint AFD-DBSA Project Preparation and Study Fund. These funds have cofinanced preparatory services for NEPAD’s ICT operations and have provided a residential technical assistant (on assignment since July 2009) to support the project for the UMOJANET (“umoja” means “union” in Swahili) broadband transmission virtual network.

This new financing has been delegated from the European Infrastructure Fund (EU-ITF) and follows on from an €850,000 AFD grant (allocated in 2006) to support NEPAD’s initiative to develop a continent-wide broadband transmission virtual network.

Umojanet is extending Uhurunet

The grant that has been allocated will finance the study program that results from the technical assistant’s research to finish off the design of the concept and of the UMOJANET network. The aim is to extend it to the 29 countries in North, West and Central Africa. This will complete both coverage on the continent and the UHURUNET project for Southern Africa.

This project aims to offer African operators a pan-African network of fiber-optic transmission channels. The resulting interconnection offer is required to meet criteria for comprehensiveness, guaranteed quality, open access, non-discrimination and lowest possible cost. The bid invitations will be published in February 2012.
AFD’s approach in supporting NEPAD’s activities is based on its research on promoting regional integration via the construction of major communication networks as a complement to the private sector. This strategy is in line with those adopted by other donors (World Bank, ADB, EIB, KfW, DBSA…). It previously prompted AFD to provide USD9.5m of cofinancing alongside other donors in 2007 for the Eastern African EASSy submarine cable project.

The signing of this additional financing for the implementation of the UMOJANET project should allow NPCA to present an effective implementation plan for a fiber-optic broadband network in West, Central and North Africa over the next 12 months. This will complete both coverage on the continent and the UHURUNET project for Southern Africa.