Reinforcing the AfDB’s Engagement in Fragile Situations – co-hosted by IDEV and the Bank’s Transition States Coordination Office

To coincide with release of an independent evaluation of the African Development Bank’s Strategy for Addressing Fragility and Building Resilience in Africa, IDEV and the Bank’s Transition States Coordination Office organized a virtual learning event on the theme, “Reinforcing the AfDB’s engagement in fragile situations”. The overall goal of the learning event was to enhance awareness and discourse on the potential of the AfDB’s current Fragility and Resilience Strategy and on the ongoing process for developing a new Bank Strategy. There were presentations followed by an open discussion for participants to join the conversation.

The objective of the AfDB’s current Strategy is to place the Bank at the center of Africa's efforts to address fragility and pave the way for a more resilient and inclusive growth trajectory. Its vision is to prevent fragility from degenerating into active conflict, to put affected countries and regions back on track, to strengthen countries’ resilience by integrating them into the regional and global economy, and to close the development gap on the continent. The strategy was adopted in June 2014 and was an evolution from the 2008 “Strategy for enhanced engagement with fragile states”. One of the points of departure from the previous strategy was to move away from notions of “fragile states” and rather look at “transition states” or “situations of fragility” at the national and regional level through a “fragility lens”. Transition states are countries where the main development challenge is fragility.

IDEV’s evaluation of the 2014-2019 Strategy addressed 4 main questions:

1. Has the Bank's assistance to transition states been strategically relevant and adapted to the context of fragility?

2. Has the Bank's approach in transition states evolved over time to allow it to operate differently in order to enhance its efficiency?

3. Has the Bank's assistance to transition states produced the expected outcomes and contributed to reducing fragility while building resilience?

4. Are the outcomes of the Bank’s assistance to transition states sustainable to help create an enabling environment for the long-term objective of exiting fragility while building resilience?

The specific objectives of the event are to share the findings and recommendations of the evaluation, to raise awareness of Bank Management’s views on the issues raised as well as the way forward for the Fragility and Resilience Strategy, and to evoke discussions among Bank Staff, Regional Member Countries and technical and financial partners on addressing situations of fragility in Africa.

Agenda:

Opening remarks: Karen Rot-Münstermann, Acting Evaluator General, IDEV

Presenters:

Clement Banse, Chief Evaluation Officer, IDEV – Evaluation Task Manager

Emile Kemayou, Chief Fragility and Resilience Officer, Transition States Coordination Office

Discussants:

El Hadj Bah, Chief Policy Economist, Vice Presidency, Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization, AfDB

Open discussion with participants

Closing remarks: 

Yero Baldeh, Director, Transition States Coordination Office