The 2017 CEO Forum of African Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), organized by the Association of African Development Finance Institutions (AADFI), ended in Abuja on 10 November with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) emerging among institutions on the honor roll of the most performing DFIs in 2017.
Thirty three institutions were placed on the honor roll for achieving the best performance with regard to meeting the AADFI Prudential Standards, Guidelines and Rating System (PSGRS) in 2017.
Afreximbank received a score of 96 per cent in the peer review of the performance of participating institutions, the seventh such review of the AADFI PSGRS.
Maureen Mba, Associate Director for Compliance, who represented the Bank at the three-day Forum, accepted the honour roll award on behalf of Afreximbank.
In a presentation at the event, Ms. Mba told guests that Afreximbank was promoting alternative financing options in order to help bridge the financing gap in Africa and to promote accelerated growth and structural transformation of the continent’s economies.
Those options included domestic resource mobilization, including from pension funds; co-financing; public-private partnerships; and blended finance which involved the combination of concessionary funds from donor partners with funds from commercial development institutions and private investors in risk-sharing arrangements with aligned incentives that ensured that official assistance was leveraged as much as possible with private capital. Others included tapping into reserves and taking advantage of Diaspora remittances.
Ms. Mba said that Afreximbank had made domestic resource mobilization a key anchor to support its business operations. In that regard, it had introduced an innovative Central Banks Deposit Programme (CENDEP) which was allowing African central banks to more effectively deploy their reserves by enabling the Afreximbank to mobilize part of the foreign exchange reserves they held to fund trade and trade-related projects in Africa while providing them with favourable returns.
The Forum, which opened on 8 November, was hosted by the Bank of Industry of Nigeria.
Maureen Mba, Associate Director for Compliance, Afreximbank (7th right), in group photo with other participants in the 2017 CEO Forum of African Development Finance Institutions in Abuja. To her right is Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, Minister of Trade and Investment of Nigeria.