Multilateral Aid Review summary - The African Development Fund (AfDF)

AfDF is the arm of the African Development Bank (AfDB) that provides highly concessional loans and grants to 38 least developed and other low income African countries. The AfDF focuses on a relatively small set of strategic priorities (economic growth, infrastructure, governance and regional integration).

	comment
Contribution to UK development objectives	Satisfactory
	+	AfDF’s exclusive focus on low-income African countries fits well with DFID’s geographical priorities.
	+	Strong focus on wealth creation (through infrastructure and regional integration), and on governance through budget support instrument.
	_	While country level evidence suggests some improvements, delays and limited in-country capacity continue to hinder performance.
	_	AfDF able to demonstrate development outputs for part but not all of its programme.
	_	Projects not always strongly focused on poverty.
	_	Need to improve quality of staffing in fragile states.
Organisational strengths	Strong
	+	Helps clients on public financial management and has good consideration of cost-effectiveness in project design.
	+	Board and management together effective at controlling admin budgets.
	_	Mixed views on AfDF use of county systems.
	+	Often has a good relationship with partner governments.
	+	Has an independent evaluation department, whose evaluations are often acted on.
	+	Well-focused and well-led with an improving results framework.
	_	Some reports of poor human resource management.
	+	Big recent turn-around of poorly-performing projects.
	+	Though only 60% of budget support disbursed on schedule, predictable, transparent financing generally the norm.
	+	Extensive financial policies
	+	Systematic and extensive publication of documentation.
	+	African countries comprise 65% of seats on board of directors and have major influence on AfDB’s future direction.
Capacity for positive change	Very likely
	+	Has made significant and demonstrable progress against ambitious reform agenda over the last three years.
	+	Further ambitious reforms planned for the next three years.
	_	Disagreement between management and some shareholders over decentralisation.