RD/COMTD/AFT/4* 
7 November 2023  
 Page: 1/5 
Committee on Trade and Development  
(Aid for Trade)  Original: English  
 
  
UNOFFICIAL ROOM DOCUMENT1 
COMMITTEE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT – 59TH SESSION ON AID FOR TRADE  
STATEMENT BY THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK  
14 November 2023  
 
 
Comité du commerce et du développement (Aide pour le commerce)  
 
DOCUMENT DE S ÉANCE NON OFFICIEL1 
COMMITTEE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT – 59TH SESSION ON AID FOR TRADE  
STATEMENT BY THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK  
14 November 2023  
 
 
Comité de Comercio y Desarrollo (Ayuda para el Comercio)  
 
DOCUMENTO DE SALA NO OF ICIAL1 
COMMITTEE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT – 59TH SESSION ON AID FOR TRADE  
STATEMENT BY THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK  
14 November 2023  
_______________  
 
* In Original language only/En langue originale seulement/En el idioma original solamente.  
1 Documents issued in the RD series are not official WTO documents. They usually appear in their 
language of submission and will not be translated systematically into the working languages of the WTO. They 
are intended for use in WTO meeting roo ms and are attributed an unofficial symbol for archiving purposes only.  
Les documents de la série RD ne sont pas des documents officiels de l 'OMC. Ils ne paraissent 
généralement que dans la langue dans laquelle ils ont été communiqués et ne seront pas systématiquement 
traduits dans les langues de travail de l'OMC. Ils sont destinés aux salles de réunion de l'OMC et une cote non 
officielle leur est attribuée à des fins d'archivage.  
Los documentos de la serie RD no son documentos oficiales de la OMC. Por lo general se distribuyen en 
el idioma en que han sido presentados y no se traduce n sistemáticamente a los idiomas de trabajo de la 
Organización. Se distribuyen para su uso en las salas de reunión de la OMC y se les asigna una signatura no 
oficial a efecto s de archivo únicamente.  RD/COMTD/AFT/4  
 
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STATEMENT AT THE COMMITTEE ON TRADE & DEVELOPMENT (CTD) – FIFTY -NINTH 
SESSION ON AID -FOR-TRADE (AfT)  
November 1 4, 2023  
 
Prepared by:  
 
Abou FALL  
Principal Trade Policy Officer – Industrialisation and Trade Development Department  
African Development Bank  
 
 
[Intro]  
 
Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,  
 
Good morning or afternoon to you all. My name is Abou FALL, Principal Trade Policy 
Officer at the Industrialisation and Trade Development Department at the African 
Development Bank Group. It is a pleasure to deliver report today on the status of the 
Africa n Development Bank’s trade and development initiatives.  
 
[The Context]  
Ladies & Gentlemen,  
 
African economies have weathered through multiple shocks in the past years, particularly 
the debilitating impact of COVID - 19, an uncertain global environment characterized by 
the tightening of global financial conditions, spillover effects of the war in Ukraine, and 
persistent climatic threats.  
 
Against this background, Africa has shown remarkable resilience, evident in the projected 
consolidation o f economic growth in the medium term. The outlook for the continent 
remains positive and stable, with a projected rebound to 4 percent in 2023 and further 
consolidation to 4.3 percent in 2024. The Bank’s projections show that 18 African 
countries will expe rience growth rates surpassing 5 percent in 2023, a number expected 
to increase to 22 in 2024. It is also of critical importance to increase investments and 
build a more resilient trading system through the Aid -for-Trade initiative. This is even 
more criti cal with the start of trading under the African Continental Free Trade Agreement 
(AfCFTA) which is a key milestone for the African continent as it will help set up a single 
African market for 1.3b people in a US$3.4 trillion economic bloc.          
  
RD/COMTD/AFT/4  
 
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[Response from the Bank on the Crises]  
 
 
Ladies and Gentlemen,  
 
The African Development Bank Group has embarked on bold initiatives to support African 
countries alleviate these crises and build the resilience of Africa and stimulate regional 
integration and trade, particularly under the AfCFTA.   
 
[Bank’s COVID -19 Response]  
 
The Bank delivered a COVID -19 Emergency response to RMCs. These resources came 
from the concessional and non -concessional windows of the Bank Group, special funds, 
and repurposed resources of cancellable loans. To achieve this, the Bank launched a 
(UA7.4 b illion) $10 Billion COVID Response Facility, dubbed the CRF. The Bank’s COVID 
Response Facility provided flexible support for sovereign and non -sovereign operations 
including:  
 
• USD 5.5 billion for sovereign operations in ADB countries (MICs);  
• USD 3.1 billi on for sovereign and regional operations in ADF countries (LICs); 
and 
• USD 1.5 billion for non -sovereign operations (private sector) in all African 
countries.  
 
[Bank’s emergency food production plan for Africa]  
 
In 2022, the African Development Bank Group i nvested USD 1.5 billion (USD1.3 billion 
from the ADB and the ADF resources) in the African Emergency Food Production Facility 
(AEFPF) to boost the local production of cereals and oil grains as the most effective and 
efficient way to build the resilience of  Africa’s food systems to respond to these 
circumstances and mitigate risks to supply in the short to medium term.  
 
[Institutional and Capacity Building for greater and inclusive trade]  
1  The Bank has a strong record on building foundations to scale up intra -African trade 
through the “Integrate Africa” and “Industrialize Africa” High -Fives with a strategy focus 
on areas such as the business environment, trade policy support to increase trad e 
flows.  
The Bank is supporting trade and continental integration through infrastructure projects, 
but also through soft infrastructure interventions on transport and trade facilitation, 
including assistance to customs capacity enhancement, national quali ty policy 
strengthening (e.g., control laboratories), the elimination of non -tariff barriers and other 
constraints to cross -border trade i.e., cumbersome rules of origin, non -tariff barriers (e.g., 
Sanitary and Phyto -sanitary and Technical Barriers to Trad e). The Bank has built a RD/COMTD/AFT/4  
 
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  comparative advantage on interventions that robustly support transport and trade 
facilitation, improving transit and designing viable operations to support the effective 
implementation of the AfCFTA. Key operations in the foregoing  regard include:  
Multinational Lobito Corridor Trade Facilitation Project that covers Zambia, Angola, and 
some parts of DR Congo. The LCTFP  seeks to accelerate growth in domestic and cross -
border trade along the Lobito Corridor through the implementation of harmonized trade 
facilitation instruments, the coordination of joint corridor development activities and 
through the effective participat ion of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in value chains 
and corridor trade.   
Multinational Harmonization and Certification of African Standards for Dairy, Horticulture, 
Fisheries and Aquaculture Products Project to address and minimize the technical 
barriers to trade across -RMCs’ borders through the harmonization and certification of 
African standards for dairy, horticulture, fisheries, and aquaculture products.  
EAC Capacity Building Project to strengthen the EAC institutional capacities through the 
development/upgrading of systems reform and improve organizational effectiveness and 
tackle persistent barriers to the efficient movement of goods and services across borders.  
Institutional Support Project to the AFCFTA Secretariat to enable the AfCFTA Secre tariat 
and RMCs (with particular focus on transition countries), to streamline and embed 
national and regional trade policy -related initiatives and move forward the African trade 
integration agenda through the effective implementation of the AfCFTA.  
 
Multinational: Madagascar -Port de Beira: Corridor Development and Trade Facilitation 
Project to develop the productivity of SMEs and strengthen food safety and speed up the 
conditions for importing and exporting products at borders, as well as the modernization  
of customs.  
Multinational – Institutional Support to ECCAS for the Implementation of the WTO Trade 
Facilitation Agreement to enhance the capacities of the ECCAS Commission regarding 
trade facilitation in order to increase its role of coordination of region al policy and 
support the capacity building of National Trade Facilitation Committees (NTFC) in ECCAS 
member countries in implementing the Trade Facilitation Agreement in Central Africa.  
 
EAC Trade Portal Project , a tripartite collaboration with The Bank, EAC & UNCTAD to 
address the trade Information and Communications Technology (ICT) systems capacity, 
low levels of online connectivity and inadequate transparency in cross -border trade; with 
the goal of feeding into  a regional single window to ease barriers to trade and reduce 
trading cost.  
Africa Continental Single Window Feasibility Study  to undertake a feasibility for a 
continental single window through integrating regional single windows, focusing on 
Single Custo ms Territories in selected RECs in Africa.  
 
[The Africa Trade Fund – Unlocking Africa’s trade potential]  
The Africa Trade Fund is a CAD 15 million Single Donor Fund (Canada) managed by the 
African Development Bank with the objective of building a competit ive African economy RD/COMTD/AFT/4  
 
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  that is regionally and globally integrated. The Africa Trade Fund has four pillars – Trade 
facilitation; Developing products and markets; Building capacity for institutions; Growing 
the Bank’s knowledge to deliver. As of June 2022, the Fund supported 26 projects led 
by 25 institutions (7 Africa -wide institutions, 5 regional bodies, 8 government agencies, 
3 not -for-profit organizations, 2 private sector alliances), with 16 low -income economies 
benefiting, one third of projects focusing on  empowering women.  
The African Development Bank is seeking to mobilize additional resources, in the tune of 
100 million USD to create the Africa Trade Fund 2.0 as a new Multi -Donor Trust Fund to 
scale-up technical assistance, institutional strengthening, and functional capacity 
development support to expand regional, continental, and international trade of Regional 
Member Countries (RMCs). Most importantly, the Fund will seek to coordinate an 
institutional approach and strategy to advance the preparedness and delivery of RMC 
actions in the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement 
(AfCFTA).   
 
[Conclusion]  
 
In conclusion, I wish to reiterate the Bank’s firm commitment to raise its ambitions to 
support the continent in its development goals. To that effect, the Bank’s new Ten -Year 
Strategy will guide its efforts to scaling up Aid -for-Trade in order to promote and 
accelerate inclusive, climate -resilient growth and development, as it continues to make 
the High 5s and the Susta inable Development Goals a reality for Africa    
 
I thank you for your kind attention.  
  
 
 
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