To help Africa find the path to its long-deserved economic fortune, the African Development Bank is championing the region’s premier investment market. The Bank is providing collaborative leadership for a new 100 percent transactional initiative – the Africa Investment Forum (AIF) – which provides Africa’s best opportunity so far to encourage accelerated economic transformation.
The African Development Bank is working with the world’s leading financial institutions to de-risk investment through the platform and make it a springboard for Africa’s economic transformation.
The President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, told key Government and private sector leaders at a breakfast session on the sidelines of the 2018 Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan on March 27, 2018, that the AIF would be exclusively about transactions and investment deals.
“This is not a talk shop. There will be no political speeches. It provides an open platform to organise efforts among multilateral institutions, governments and private sector to improve a pipeline of projects capable of transforming the continent,” he said.
The first Africa Investment Forum will be held from November 7-9, 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. It will then be held yearly to enable and facilitate interactions to broker and accelerate deals, for candid discussions with policy-makers to shape the business and regulatory environment, as well as to track the implementation of commitments.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is having a disruptive effect on economies and the development of digital skills is vital. There is an opportunity, especially in Africa, to embrace new and exponential technologies combined with human talent to accelerate industrialization and drive economic growth.
According to The Future of Jobs and Skills in Africa Report, release by the World Economic Forum (WEF), it is predicted that 44 percent of all work activities in Ethiopia are susceptible to automation, as are 46 percent in Nigeria, 52 percent in Kenya and 41 percent in South Africa.
With this in mind, Siemens is handing over equipment specifically related to industrial automation that enables integrated engineering to 13 engineering faculties at universities in Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa. This is part of the company’s commitment to sustainable skills development across the continent. The value of the equipment is close to USD 400,000.
Data collected by WEF in key African markets shows employers across the region identify inadequately skilled workforces as a major constraint to their businesses, including 41 percent of all firms in Tanzania, 30 percent in Kenya, 9 percent in South Africa and 6% in Nigeria. This pattern may get worse in the future. In South Africa alone, 39 percent of core skills required across occupations will be wholly different by 2020.
Siemens will continue its commitment to Africa and offer long-term support to beneficiaries by ensuring that students are able to train on the most advanced technology available. This will ensure graduates, and therefore the emerging workforce, have the skills necessary to effectively lead large-scale digitalization across the continent, resulting in long-term benefits to economic growth.

Over 32,500 rural households in the Bagoué, Poro, Tchologo, Hambol and Gbêkê regions will benefit from a financial agreement signed between the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Cote d’Ivoire to increase the incomes and food and nutrition security of rural households. The programme will promote market-oriented agriculture and help farmers add value to their products, as a way to reduce rural poverty and stimulate economic growth in the programme areas.
The financing agreement for the Agricultural Value Chains Development Programme (PADFA) was signed in Rome by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, and Seydou Cissé, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire to FAO, IFAD and WFP.
The total cost of the programme is USD71.8 million, including a USD 18.5 million loan from IFAD. The project will be co-financed by the OPEC Fund for International Development (USD 19 million), the Government of Côte d’Ivoire (USD 4.2 million), and the beneficiaries themselves (USD 10.2 million), with USD 19.9 million to come from other sources.
In Côte d’Ivoire, agricultural development projects have traditionally concentrated on boosting productivity, but insufficient investments have been made in post-harvest activities such as conservation, processing and marketing.  The IFAD-funded Support to Agricultural Production and Marketing Project (PROPACOM) and other projects have introduced hydro-agricultural improvements and invested in disseminating improved farming technologies. Drawing lessons learned from the experience of these projects, PADFA will ensure continuity with PROPACOM and scale up tangible results while introducing further innovations.

The first International Dialogue on Migration (IDM) of 2018 – IOM, the UN Migration Agency’s major forum for policy dialogue – is currently underway. The first of the two dialogues to be held this year, this week’s discussions are focusing on partnership and taking place at United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York.
“The IDM was established some 17 years ago to be a very large and welcoming meeting place, where our Member States can interact directly and openly with other relevant actors on migration governance, exchange views, and promote understanding of migration dynamics,” said IOM Director General, Ambassador William Lacy Swing, in his opening remarks.
Noting the timely focus of this year’s IDM on inclusive and innovative partnerships for effective global governance of migration, Ambassador Swing stated that the first-ever Global Compact for Migration “deserves close, concerted action from the international community as a whole to ensure successful review implementation and follow-up.”
Louise Arbour, the United Nations Special Representative for International Migration added, “The Secretary-General’s Report Making Migration Work for All called for the Global Compact to provide a positive agenda that would focus on helping migrants fulfil their potential, promote regular migration and address effectively the challenges of irregular migration.”
Among the participants of IDM are national and local governments; multiple ministries; civil society; the private sector, migrant and diaspora organizations; academia; the media; and others. Discussions explored different partnership models that exist in the field of migration and showcase their value by presenting some of the migration management tools developed through cooperation among different actors.