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A long-standing partner, the French Development Agency (AFD) has supported the Foundation's activities for over 10 years. Its Director, R\u00e9my Rioux, shares his perspective on the impact of the economic and health crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic on the African continent and his assessment of the partnership with the Foundation.<\/p>\n
RR: Africa experienced a shock in 2020, which I would like to point out was entirely exogenous and unprecedented. The continent appeared quite resilient in terms of health, but less so in terms of the economy. An unprecedented recession, averaging 2.61 times the previous year, affected more than forty countries simultaneously. Beyond the cyclical impact, the crisis is raising fears of a profound weakening of economies and societies.<\/p>\n
The French Development Agency (AFD) group mobilized very quickly to support its partners. On the health front, with a \u20ac1.2 billion Health in Common initiative, half of which is in Africa for around fifty projects and nearly \u20ac130 million in donations; and on the economic front, with our "Choose Africa" program to support the entrepreneurial network and then strengthen it with a Resilience component, bringing the program to \u20ac3.2 billion committed by 2022. Finally, we are supporting, in line with the "Finance in Common" Summit, African public development banks\u2014there are around a hundred on the continent\u2014to make them drivers of sustainable growth.<\/p>\n
RR: For more than 10 years, the AFD Group has provided the Foundation with portfolio and individual guarantees and financed the African Facility, which allows us to support small institutions for the benefit of disadvantaged populations, particularly in rural areas. Since 2020, the partnership with the Foundation has been managed by Proparco, our subsidiary dedicated to the private sector. Beyond the financial partnership, we appreciate the quality of the relationship between our two institutions, marked by trust and transparency. The essential nature of supporting the microfinance sector has been reinforced by the Covid-19 crisis, and working with the Foundation constitutes a solid lever for strengthening the sector.<\/p>\n
RR: It is the complementarity of our two institutions and their modes of intervention that make the partnership strong and relevant in serving several priority areas of intervention, namely: support for the development of microinsurance, particularly agricultural microinsurance; support for microfinance institutions in improving social performance management; development of the digital offering of the microfinance sector; and green microfinance. The context of the crisis has reinforced the relevance of these areas of intervention.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
R\u00e9my Rioux, Directeur g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, Groupe Agence fran\u00e7aise de d\u00e9veloppement Partenaire historique, l\u2019Agence fran\u00e7aise de d\u00e9veloppement (AFD) soutient les activit\u00e9s de la Fondation depuis plus de 10 ans. Son Directeur, R\u00e9my Rioux, nous partage sa vision sur l\u2019impact de la crise \u00e9conomique et sanitaire g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9e par la pand\u00e9mie Covid-19 sur le continent africain et son bilan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":14746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,44],"tags":[],"pays-actualite":[],"types-publications-media":[],"class_list":["post-14745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualite","category-covid-19"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n