The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and the Islamic Development Bank (isDB) have signed a joint partnership action plan for the development of the pharmaceutical industry sector within their African member countries. The plan offers a new framework for strengthened cooperation and mutual development priorities, with a strong emphasis on boosting the continent’s health defense systems.
According to a press release, the aide-memoire was signed at the headquarters of the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by Dr. Abdu Mukhtar, Director of Industrial and Trade Development for the African Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank, Director of the Economic and Social Infrastructure Department, Idrissa Dia.
The signing rounded out two days of presentations and deliberations on the institutions’ health strategies for Africa and the African Development Bank’s Pharmaceutical Action Plan. During the sessions, teams from both institutions discussed a joint pipeline of pharmaceutical projects proposed for cofinancing, as well as potential collaboration in advocacy and knowledge creation for their member countries.
The Joint Action Plan enables both institutions to grow a shared pipeline of bankable projects around key complementary themes to which each institution would bring their comparative advantage.
The plan covers lending to public and private sector projects and pharmaceutical development projects using a regional approach. The institutions will also cooperate on the organization of a global Pharmaceutical Business Forum in May 2023 at the General Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank.
The event will bring together key pharmaceutical sector industry captains, including big pharma companies, continental, regional and governmental regulatory agencies, technology transfer entities.
The gathering will deliberate on business opportunities, vaccine off-take agreements, pharmaceutical technology transfer agreements and project preparation resources, among other topics. “The African Development Bank Group places considerable importance on partnerships in its contributions to sustainable development in Africa.
Through partnership we can go further, we can increase development effectiveness, we can leverage our complementarities and harness our synergies,” said Solomon Quaynor, Vice President of Infrastructure, Private Sector and Industrialization.
