Middle East Regional Office

The Middle East Regional Office manages and supports the Group's activities in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories. Its work in Syria and Yemen is limited to monitoring and analysis.

In a fragile region marked by protracted and compounding crises, and structural challenges, AFD Group committed to adopt a regional strategy on a ten-year timeframe. This long-term goal ensures strategic consistency and consolidates the Group's activity with its partners.

The strategy’s three objectives are:

Strengthen the social link

Both vertically (quality of the relation between institutions and citizens – targeting mainly young people and women) and horizontally (quality of relations between the different societies that structure Middle Eastern communities). In line with its “Vulnerabilities to Crises and Resilience” Strategy and the models of the Pathways for Peace report, AFD Group will seek to support the inclusion of marginalized populations and territories, as well as increase access to more inclusive, participatory and transparent public institutions, to mitigate the upward pressure on basic services.

Sustainably and equitably manage shared areas and resources

This action will be conducted : 

• At the local level, by working on issues of access to land or management of urban spaces, to create a sense of community when this is lacking, and encourage mixed spaces(social, community-based, generational);
• At the national and regional levels, by working towards good resource governance (e.g., availability and quality of water resources, energy efficiency and renewable energies), as well as enhancing a shared historical and cultural heritage;
• At the global level, by contributing to the management of global common goods (climate, biodiversity, health safety) by raising awareness amongst the region’s citizens and AFD Group’s counterparts about the risks of rapid environmental degradation.

Support an equitable and sustainable growth trajectory

AFD Group support both public and private investments in promising sectors that can boost employment locally, particularly for women and youth and ii) local economic development based on financial inclusion and support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). By bolstering entrepreneurship and innovation, these investments will encourage women’s participation in the economy and will be ecologically sustainable, in line with the Paris Agreement. 

AFD’s approach in the region aims to create leverage to maximize and upscale project impacts. The Group is committed to financing sustainable, equitable and inclusive operations, with special emphasis on gender equality issues and to issues of adaptation and disaster prevention, which is critical in a region exposed to the effects of climate change.

Minka: AFD's response to crises

The Minka Peace and resilience fund in the Middle East is AFD’s prevention-oriented response aiming at mitigating the vulnerabilities generated by the population displacements caused by the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts and strengthening the resilience of the host, neighboring countries. The € 272 million grants committed from 2017 to 2021 helped to reduce vulnerabilities, tackle sources of violence and consolidate peace. This initiative is a multi-sectoral approach, to respond to diverse needs of vulnerable populations, refugees, displaced and members of host communities (health, education, water supply and sanitation). This initiative works collectively with partners to bring quick results and lasting changes in people’s lives: 89% of funding granted in 2017 was implemented by non-state actors and an increasing share of these are national actors (notably civil society ones).