News
Backing LGBTQ Rights in Albania
On World Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on May 17, we tell the story of Xheni Karaj, who has defied death threats to campaign for the rights of LGBTQ+ people in Albania. She was honored by the...
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AFD Group's 2022 Results: Fulfilling Ambitious Objectives
In its first full year of existence, the new and expanded AFD Group fulfilled its ambitious funding commitments, signing €12.3 billion of new financing in 2022. As revealed in AFD’s Annual Results pub...
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Africa's Great Green Wall: Restoring Land for Food Security
The Great Green Wall, the largest living structure on the planet, stretches some 8,000 km across Africa from Mali and Senegal to Sudan. Backed by AFD, eleven countries are working to reverse desertifi...
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Sanitation in Brazil: from Mud to Energy
Water and sanitation companies in several Brazilian states are carrying out an ambitious project to improve wastewater treatment and recover sewage sludge. This is part of an overall effort to better...
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Tanzania: Zanzibar’s New State of the Art Health Clinic
A new health “polyclinic” will provide Zanzibar's one million residents with access to a wide range of health services, from disease detection and health emergencies to enhanced dental care. The Aga K...
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Overhauling Bangladesh’s Factories, 10 Years on from the Rana Plaza Disaster
The collapse of a factory complex in Bangladesh ten years ago, which killed more than 1100 people, was a stark reminder of the deadly conditions in which factory workers produced name-brand clothing f...
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Reinventing the “Venice of Africa”
In the south of Benin, in the lake village of Ganvié, buildings are perched on stilts, and traffic consists not of cars, but canoes. Yet the the picturesque site known as the “Venice of Africa" is bei...
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4 Projects where Partnering with NGOs Improves Access to Healthcare
In pursuing “Health for All”, the theme of World Health Day 2023, NGOs are actively engaged in the field to enhance access to health care. Here is a selection of four projects sponsored by AFD Group.
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Sports as a Driver of Development and Peace
Sports are often linked to development, but the exact relationship is rarely explained. Whether the issues revolve around gender, health or education, how to measure the impact of sport on the Sustain...
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Health and Social Protection: Our contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals
The Covid-19 crisis has cast into sharp relief the need to increase investment in more resilient health and social protection systems in the face of current and future crises - whether they concern he...
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2 Projects to Lower Poverty and Inequality in Rwanda
As part of the effort to combat poverty and inequality in Rwanda, two new projects were recently signed and launched: one to improve conditions in Kigali's informal settlements and the other to improv...
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Ethiopia: Reviving Agriculture in Areas Afflicted by Conflict
The two-year civil war that wracked Ethiopia until last fall claimed tens of thousands of lives and destroyed vast swathes of the natural environment. It also wreaked havoc on food security and agricu...
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Fighting Fake News in the Middle East: the Surprising Benefits of Fact Checking
Following the earthquakes that devastated communities across Turkey in February, misinformation spread rapidly, exacerbating the emotional toll it took on victims and families. Fact-checkers around th...
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Suriname: Improving Waste Treatment for a Cleaner Environment and Better Human Health
Open rubbish dumps, rapidly expanding landfills and the open-air burning of waste are damaging both the environment and human health in Suriname. Lacking infrastructure and robust regulation, the smal...
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“We Cannot Develop Sustainably if we Lack the Resources”
Often overlooked in discussion of development are the financial and strategic changes required to shift economies from fossil fuels to greener alternatives – and the need to overcome lingering debt....
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Hydropower in Tanzania to Reinforce Renewable Energy
The Tanzanian government and AFD Group have just signed an agreement for the construction of a hydropower plant and dam in the Kagera region that will provide electricity to 3 to 4 million people and...
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Water Management, Worldwide: 12 AFD-Backed Projects
The UN Water Conference under way this week in New York is issuing a call to action to deal with the increasingly serious water-related crises unfolding all over the planet. But little progress has be...
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3 Innovative Projects to Preserve Water Resources
Water stress is becoming increasingly common due to climate change, from droughts and irregular rainfall to dwindling aquifers and groundwater. Some countries are using innovative methods however, to...
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“Water is Central to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals”
The United Nations Water Conference, being held in New York from March 22 to 24, seeks to reinforce efforts to ensure universal access to safe water and sanitation by 2030. Water is important not only...
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CSOs: Call for Expressions of Interest 2023
To support civil society organizations (CSOs) in the field of development and international solidarity, AFD is launching a new call for expressions of interest and project proposals for financing in 2...
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