Côte d’Ivoire Secures $400,000 Grant From AfDB To Boost Public Financial Institution

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a $400,000 technical assistance grant to the Deposit and Consignment Office of Côte d’Ivoire (CDC-CI), a State bank handling official deposits.

A public financial institution serving the general interest, the CDC-CI was created in June 2018. Its goals include mobilizing and managing public and private funds securely and contributing to the financing of the economy through general investments.

The institution also plays an important role as an institutional investor in the regional financial market through its liquidity management operations.

The funding comes from the Capital Markets Development Trust Fund, a multi-donor fund administered by the AfDB. The Fund is supported by the Ministries of Finance of Luxembourg and Foreign Trade and Cooperation of the Netherlands.

The Capital Markets Development Trust Fund is a multi-donor grant mechanism designed to help build strong African capital markets and support the Bank’s efforts to mobilize domestic resources to finance Africa’s development.

The grant will help the CDC-CI to better support small and medium-sized enterprises to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and encourage entrepreneurial initiatives, particularly for women and youth.

It will also support the preparation of a strategy paper to define the scope of intervention to assist SMEs; this will then be supported by a feasibility study to identify, prepare, and validate options for implementation.

As part of the capacity building, staff of the CDC-CI will also receive training and tools. The project would enable the CDC-CI to expand its investor base in the country’s capital markets.

Head of the Capital Markets Development Division of the AfDB, Ahmed Attout said supporting institutional investors such as the CDC-CI with technical assistance and capacity-building projects is one of the Bank’s strategic areas of intervention, adding that the objective is to broaden and deepen the long-term financing ecosystem in our regional member countries.

Managing Director of CDC-CI, Lassina Fofana said contributing to the financing of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises is part of the CDC-CI’s mission as a public interest investor.

“With this funding from the African Development Bank’s Capital Markets Development Trust Fund, CDC-CI will accelerate the establishment of financing mechanisms for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises in conjunction with the Ivorian banking and financial sectors. CDC-CI will contribute to the development of businesses that create wealth and jobs, especially for young people and women”, he stressed.