AFD - French Development Agency

09/19/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/19/2024 09:21

DBSA, AIIB to co-host 5th Finance in Common Summit in South Africa

The fifth Finance in Common (FiCS) annual summit will take place on Feb. 26-28, 2025, co-hosted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Cape Town, Republic of South Africa, with the support of AFD (Agence Française de Développement).

The fifth Finance in Common (FiCS) annual summit will take place on Feb. 26-28, 2025, co-hosted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Cape Town, Republic of South Africa, with the support of AFD (Agence Française de Développement).

Aligning with South Africa's upcoming role as Chair of the G20 in 2025 and with the overarching theme of "Fostering Infrastructure and Finance for Just and Sustainable Growth" the Summit will focus on key development issues such as infrastructure for climate action, adaptation and resilience, inclusive finance and digital transformation. The event will be a Summit of Solutions where public development banks (PDBs) and their stakeholders deliver concrete and impactful responses on the path to making sustainability the new normal of finance.

The FiCS, a global initiative launched in 2020 by the World Federation of Development Finance Institutions (WFDFI), the International Development Finance Club (IDFC) and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to mobilize all PDBs with their stakeholders, serves as a platform for political impetus, rallying all PDBs and their stakeholders together. The Summit provides a valuable opportunity for financial announcements, commitments and the delivery of key outcomes. After Paris (2020), Rome (2021), Abidjan (2022) and Cartagena (2023), the Finance in Common Coalition looks forward to holding its next Summit in 2025 in Cape Town.

"In a year in which South Africa will hold the presidency of the G20, this event underscores the DBSA's commitment to driving inclusive economic growth and sustainable development in developing nations." said Boitumelo Mosako, CEO of the DBSA.
"We are honored to co-host FiCS with DBSA." said Jin Liqun, President and Chair of the Board of Directors of AIIB. "The collaboration between AIIB and DBSA signals a strengthened partnership between Asia and Africa, aiming to bolster infrastructure investment and sustainable development across both regions and beyond."
"We thank DBSA for co-hosting the next edition of FiCS with AIIB and we look forward to welcoming our community in South Africa." added Rémy Rioux, Chairman of Finance in Common and CEO of AFD. "The year 2025 marks a significant milestone, coming a decade after the Addis Ababa conference, the SDGs 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement on climate. We urgently need to unlock the full collective potential of PDBs, quantity and quality wise, and set a new, efficient and at-scale global financial architecture."

About Finance in Common
Finance in Common is the global network of all Public Development Banks (PDBs), which aims to align financial flows on the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement for Climate Change. Its objective is to strengthen partnerships among PDBs to accelerate the convergence towards shared standards and best practices, to support banks' commitments to shift their strategies towards sustainability, and to give PDBs more visibility in the global fora discussing international policy issues. FiCS gathers around 530 public development banks (multilateral, regional, national and subnational) and their stakeholders. In this spirit, Finance in Common works to help reorient the financial system towards sustainability, positioning PDBs as partners of choice. Its members manage around 23 trillion USD in assets and about 2.5 trillion USD in annual investments, more than 10% of total investment flows.

About DBSA
The Development Bank of Southern Africa is one of the leading development financial institutions on the continent. Our primary purpose is delivering impactful development finance solutions that ignite transformative change in South Africa and on the rest of the African continent. Improving the quality of life of people in Africa is the fundamental focus of our development impact. We aim to bend the arc of history towards shared prosperity through multifaceted investments in sustainable infrastructure and human capacity.
Our product solutions span all phases of the infrastructure development value chain from infrastructure planning and project preparation, across a range of financing and non-financing investments to infrastructure implementation and delivery. Our primary areas of focus include Energy, ICT, Transport, Water and Sanitation. Our secondary area of focus includes Education, Housing and Health.

About AIIB
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a multilateral development bank whose mission is financing the Infrastructure for Tomorrow - infrastructure with sustainability at its core. We began operations in Beijing in January 2016 and have since grown to 109 approved members worldwide. We are capitalized at USD100 billion and Triple-A-rated by the major international credit rating agencies. Collaborating with partners, AIIB meets clients' needs by unlocking new capital and investing in infrastructure that is green, technology-enabled and promotes regional connectivity.