At this year’s Global CEO Forum of African Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), Mr Mensah-Baah, explained that national DFIs had a critical role to play to achieve the specific goals under the SDGs, adding that the first step was to cultivate a strong governance culture.

He reiterated the need to de-risk and collaborate with government agencies on developmental policies, providing technical assistance, and driving product innovation, including partial credit guarantees and equity funding by DFIs.

Forum

The forum was organised by the Association of African Development Finance Institutions (AADFI), in collaboration with the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency.

The forum, which was held in Gaborone, Botswana, was dubbed: “Building partnerships for resource mobilisation in financing Sustainable Development Goals”.

The CEO Forum is an annual event on the calendar of the AADFI that provides a platform for CEOs and C-suite executives of African DFIs to gather with key stakeholders and partners to discuss issues that impinge on African DFIs’ operations, and to generate innovative ideas on the way forward.

This year’s conference focused on improving the operating conditions of African DFIs for the recovery of members’ economies from the pandemic and other global challenges.

It also focused on speeding up the process of attaining the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on the African continent.

Panel discussion

At a panel discussion on the topic: “African DFIs Capabilities and the Quest for Relevance in Achieving the 2030 SDGs Agenda on the Continent”, Mr Mensah-Baah said “digitisation is vital to achieving development and a successful implementation of the SDGs at the scale and urgency it requires.

“DBG has, therefore, partnered with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Ghana to develop a digital financial ecosystem aimed at providing a common platform for promoting financial literacy, lending with common underwriting standards, creating a marketplace between Ghanaian small-scale enterprises and those in the Ghana Asian corridor,” he said.