We, the Finance Ministers of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan, met in the afternoon today, 26 June 2021. The Djibouti, Ethiopia and Sudan Ministers, together with the Director-General of AfDB was physically present in Djibouti – our first semi face-to-face meeting since the Covid crisis set in – while others joined virtually. As in previous gatherings, IGAD participated as an observer, continuing to bring its knowledge to enhance the programme. This meeting was preceded by a morning working breakfast attended by Djibouti, Ethiopia and Sudan ministers, additional development partners and others as well as various media organisations. This meeting aimed at promoting greater awareness of and support towards the Initiative by a broader range of stakeholders, and help to raise its visibility.

Extract: “We reiterate that that physical investment alone will not yield the full impact expected from development projects. We, therefore, discussed the broader policy, regulatory and institutional harmonization agenda needed to complement investments. We took special note of challenges in energy and trade areas, as well as bottom-up approached to develop the digital economy, which was discussed today. We, as Finance Ministers, are committed to continuing to support harmonisation efforts under the HoA Initiative. We reiterate our strong commitment to a balanced approach between hard and soft investments and will support the nomination of working groups in July 2021 to work on broad policy issues, especially in the area of trade. The starting point for this would be various workshops planned for the first half of July.”

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