The development agenda has changed radically over the past two years with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement on climate change, and France’s goal of increasing its official development assistance (ODA) to 0.55% of gross national income (GNI) by 2022.
The President of the Republic has made development policy one of the priorities of his mandate. This priority implies a renewal of this policy!
As the principal player in French development policy, AFD Group has designed a new action strategy to meet these challenges and goals – issues it has already begun to address substantively. The strategy draws on a year of deep thinking and extensive consultation with French citizens, civil society in operating countries, and AFD Group partners worldwide.
Dedicated to the AFD motto, “A World in Common”, and the dual goals of reaching satisfactory human-development levels without disrupting the Earth’s environmental balance, the AFD Group 2018-2022 Strategy aims to make development policy into a genuine solidarity-based investment policy.
5 foundational commitments
The AFD Group 2018-2022 Strategy rests on five foundational commitments that underpin all actions:
- 100 % Paris Agreement: All project funding will now finance climate-change-resilient, low-carbon development. AFD Group will draw on public and private resources to fund these efforts.
- 100 % social link: AFD Group actions must bolster social cohesion and well-being in the populations they serve, particularly by increasing access to education and promoting gender equality.
- 3D development thinking: In fragile and crises-afflicted situations, AFD Group will work alongside other development professionals to uphold the third “D” in France’s Defense, Diplomacy, and Development trinity.
- Non-sovereign first: AFD Group will dedicate more financing to non-sovereign entities, such as local governments, civil society organizations, foundations, and private-sector companies, and direct their investments toward sustainable solutions.
- Partnership by design: AFD Group will systematically open projects to new partners in order to amplify shared experience and improve project effectiveness.
A new approach based on the concept of “transitions”
AFD also holds the belief that all countries – Northern and Southern – need to transition toward smaller ecological footprints and higher human development indices. Therefore, all countries must define new development models.
All countries are in transition and need to define trajectories to conciliate climate, social cohesion and prosperity.
Innovation stands at the heart of the AFD Group project
AFD now includes innovation among its guiding principles, seeking to anticipate future challenges and increase the added value of its operations. The Group aims for constant reflection on its role in a changing world.
AFD Group will change its research practices to improve its forecasting ability. It will amplify research projects, models, evaluations, expert networks, and other knowledge-production efforts while encouraging knowledge-sharing between countries and local actors.
A new operational geography
AFD Group has altered the way it reads the world, the better to meet the specific needs of each region; it has defined three new global regions for action:
- “Whole of Africa” to take the full measure of the continent.
- “The Three Oceans” to situate the French Overseas Provinces in their regional spheres.
- “The Americas and The Orients” where the focus will be on low-carbon development.
AFD Group as a platform
AFD Group has prepared for the increase in French development aid by positioning itself as the bilateral development-policy platform. In this role, it will host, unite, and extend the efforts of any entity that can provide funding, expertise, or implementation capacity to emerging and developing countries.
AFD Group, that is AFD and its private-sector subsidiary Proparco, in concert with Expertise France once it joins the Group, will have the capacity and the responsibility to extend its international reach and mobilize its French and European partners.
