African Development Bank and ODI Global Join Forces to Tackle Africa’s Funding Gap

Research findings will inform policy notes, meetings and other work connected to replenishments of the African Development Fund, the Bank Group’s concessional financing window for low-income African countries.

The African Development Bank Group and ODI Global have formalised a partnership to develop financing tools and policies that better reflect African countries' needs as development assistance tightens, debt pressures rise, and climate and economic challenges intensify. A new Memorandum of Understanding combines the Bank's operational analysis with ODI Global's independent policy research, focusing on borrowing costs, private capital mobilisation, financing for structurally vulnerable economies and transition contexts, and more effective use of concessional funds.

Financing reforms need to reflect countries' investment priorities

Affordable, long-term finance remains difficult to secure for infrastructure, energy, private sector growth and economic transformation, with high capital costs, limited or fragmented capital markets and pressure on concessional resources restricting investment. Sara Pantuliano CMG, ODI Global's Chief Executive, said the partnership would identify reforms that give countries greater room to set their own investment priorities and plan for the long term. She stressed the importance of financing that supports lasting development and avoids deepening the vulnerabilities countries already face.

The agreement brings together the Bank Group's financing capabilities, operational experience and ability to convene institutions with ODI Global's internationally recognised research and policy expertise. Their previous collaboration through the G20 and other multilateral channels covered capital adequacy, callable capital and balance sheet optimisation, with joint contributions to discussions including a G20 Africa Engagement Framework Roundtable. Formalising the relationship moves that work from individual projects into a long-term strategic partnership, bringing African priorities and experience more directly into global debates on concessional financing and institutional effectiveness.

Research will examine practical ways to expand access to capital

Joint work will assess how reforms to multilateral development banks and Africa's financial architecture could improve access to finance, using comparative research to draw lessons from capital market access, blended finance and concessional funding instruments. The institutions will examine ways to mobilise larger volumes of private capital through portfolio offloading, insurance, guarantees and other risk-sharing arrangements. Experience from development finance institutions will inform the analysis of sovereign and non-sovereign financing needs, connecting proposed reforms with the realities of serving government and other borrowers.

African Development Bank Group President Dr Sidi Ould Tah placed the partnership within four priorities: greater institutional efficiency, faster delivery on the ground, resource mobilisation at a much larger scale beginning with Africa's own resources, and impact measured through benefits reaching people. He described rigorous, independent analysis as valuable when it helps produce instruments that work in practice. That emphasis gives the collaboration a practical purpose, linking research with financing approaches suited to the conditions in which African economies operate.

Partnership supports concessional funding and Africa's own resources

Research findings will inform policy notes, meetings and other work connected to replenishments of the African Development Fund, the Bank Group's concessional financing window for low-income African countries. The partnership's outcomes will shape reforms and innovations designed to make the Fund more responsive to financing constraints, support private sector development and mobilise additional resources. These activities connect the wider debate on development finance reform with the funding decisions and institutional changes that influence countries' access to affordable investment.

The collaboration is expected to complement implementation of the New African Financial Architecture for Development, endorsed through the Abidjan Consensus in April 2026. The initiative seeks to address Africa's annual financing gap of $400 billion by making better use of the continent's own resources, including domestic savings, continent-wide guarantees, shared-risk systems and deeper local capital markets. Its connection with the ODI Global partnership places independent research alongside efforts to expand financing capacity and build arrangements that serve Africa's longer-term development priorities.