Benin joins six other African countries that contribute to ADF; 74 million people in Africa have benefitted from improvements in agriculture for food security through the Fund.

Benin has pledged $2 million to the next replenishment of the African Development Fund, the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group.

The country’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Romuald Wadagni, made the announcement in Cotonou, at the opening session of the Mid-Term Review of the 16^th Replenishment of the Fund.

It came shortly after the head of the African Development Bank Group, Dr Akinwumi Adesina invited Benin’s President Patrice Talon to be a champion of ADF 17 and encouraged him to “pledge financial support.”

Announcing his country’s pledge, Minister Wadagni said the African Development Fund was a trusted partner for low-income countries and recommended that each “recipient country demonstrates rigour and transparency.”

He said one of Benin’s objectives was “to ensure that we can use the ADF instrument in the form of guarantees and raise money in order to benefit from its leverage effect.”

The current three-year financing cycle, which received a record $8.9 billion ends in 2025. Benin becomes the seventh African country to contribute, joining Algeria, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa.

“Our ambition is encouraging more African countries to become state participants in the ADF,” said Adesina, citing Kenya’s pledge of $20 million to ADF, announced last May by President William Ruto during the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank Group in Nairobi.

He said the African Development Fund is providing Benin with $108.2 million towards general budget support for economic governance and private sector development program focused on improving the overall business climate, supporting agro-industrial sector and strengthening the development of Special Economic Zones, like Glo Gjigbe, that ADF delegates visited as part of the Mid Term Review program.

Across the continent, Adesina said the African Development Fund is achieving impactful and impressive results.

“15 million people have been provided with access to electricity. 74 million people have benefitted from improvements in agriculture for food security. 45 million people have benefitted from improved transport. And over 8,700 kilometers of roads have been built or rehabilitated,” said Adesina.

“I am proud of what this institution has achieved in its 50 years of existence,” he added, pointing out that the Fund has been ranked “the second-best concessional financing institution in the world for the quality of its development assistance.”

The Cotonou meeting was attended by ministers, representatives of donor and beneficiary member countries, the Bank Group’s Board of Directors, senior management and staff.