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6 Development Highlights of 2022
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Over the past year, the world has endured major geopolitical upheavals with vast repercussions, not least on food security. But the year also saw major international events where world leaders addressed crucial climate and biodiversity issues. Here we take a look at how AFD has responded to the events and the issues raised.
AFD Group has Expertise
At the start of 2022, Expertise France, the interministerial agency for international technical cooperation, became part of AFD Group. Along with its third component Proparco (its subsidiary dedicated to the private sector), AFD Group now offers a full and well-rounded offer to continue work in our key areas of operation.
Our projects - worldwide
These areas are clearly set out in our “100% SDG” Activity and Corporate Social Responsibility Report: climate change, biodiversity, peace, gender equality, education, and health. More than 4,000 projects in all, including 995 new projects in 2021, are being implemented in more than 150 countries as well as in 11 French overseas departments and territories.
Projects supported by Expertise France include Biodev 2030. This AFD-financed initiative seeks to improve fishing and aquaculture practices while better protecting biodiversity and the oceans.
Maritime biodiversity
At the One Ocean Summit in Brest, France, in February 2022, AFD signed the United Nations Environment Program’s 14 Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles to promote conservation and sustainability in ocean-related sectors such as fishing, transport, marine renewable energy, and tourism.
AFD has committed more than €6 billion since 2008 to projects boosting the maritime and coastal economy and the protection of marine and coastal ecosystems. These include the Clean Oceans initiative in Lomé, Togo; an app to promote sustainable fishing practices in Mexico; and the BACoMaB fund to protect marine biodiversity in the Banc d’Arguin National Park in Mauritania.
Alliances between Africa and Europe
Whatever the scope of action, the nature of these partnerships for sustainable development and solidarity must be defined in order to make them effective. In that connection, the “Investing Together for a New Alliance Between Africa and Europe” conference saw the start of discussions on the need to redefine the links between Africa and Europe.
This new alliance must “reject any asymmetry and look towards a common sustainable future,” according to philosopher and historian Achille Mbembe. The conference was held within the framework of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, just prior to the African Union–European Union summit of February 17-18, 2022.
The post-Covid economic recovery experienced by African countries has been real, but only half as robust as in the rest of the world. Priorities for continued support for economies in Africa include investing in sustainable infrastructure, giving a greater role to civil society, and financing African entrepreneurship along the lines of the Choose Africa initiative.
Striving for food security
The year 2022 was also marred by the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Its consequences have been terrible not only for the population, but also for the African countries that depend on the import of agricultural raw materials. In the Sahel, for example, to counter the pressing problem of food insecurity, AFD is using tools that adapt to local contexts, such as the Minka Peace and Resilience Fund.
Over the longer term, AFD Group is working to support advances in food self-sufficiency in an effort to limit reliance on imports. Meanwhile, in Chad, we are supporting the development of agricultural production in the Bahr Linia region.
Food, climate, nature: global themes with ambitious targets
Food security was also a key theme at both COP27 on climate change, held in November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and COP15 on biodiversity, held in December in Montreal, Canada. Indeed, climate change and ecosystem degradation have direct impact on food systems.
Adaptation, renewable energy, and deforestation were also major issues at the conferences. AFD increased its commitments by continuing to move towards full alignment with the Paris Agreement and by planning to align itself with the 23 targets of the new Global Biodiversity Framework.
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