ADB Cofinancing Reaches New High in 2015

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) leveraged a record $10.74 billion in cofinancing in 2015. When combined with $16.44 billion from its own resources for grants and loans and technical assistance, total assistance reached $27.17 billion, says ADB's Office of Cofinancing Operations (OCO) in its annual report released today at ADB's Annual Meeting in Frankfurt, Germany.

The cofinancing figure includes $6.17 billionthe highest amount ever raised through robust partnerships with bilateral and multilateral organizations, foundations, corporations, and other sources of concessional fundsto support 69 investment projects and 85 technical assistance projects. Despite global fiscal constraints, financing support from these development partners increased by 39% from $4.43 billion in 2014. The remaining amount came from commercial cofinancing.

We are grateful for the contributions from our development partners, said OCO Head, Rune Stroem. Through joint efforts and deeper collaboration, we experienced an unprecedented level of cofinancing in 2015. Together with our partners, we intend to improve delivery of programs and projects to yield concrete and measurable results for our developing member countries.

The record cofinancing amounts were driven by several initiatives, the OCO report said. In 2015, ADB became the first multilateral development bank accredited by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board. An ADB-supported urban water supply and wastewater project in Fiji was among the first of eight funding proposals approved by the GCF.

German development bank KfW approved $1.1 billion in cofinancing for five projects in the energy sector under its $2 billion framework agreement with ADB. The Government of Japan continued its strong support for innovative poverty reduction and social development activities through $108.7 million of new commitments to ADB trust funds. The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development agreed to strengthen its institutional partnership with ADB and to improve Nepal's community-managed irrigation systems and agricultural practices through $17 million in loan cofinancing.

ADB further enhanced its partnerships by signing cofinancing agreements with the Export-Import Bank of India and State Bank of India. The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development extended its memorandum of agreement for a further 5 years to 2020.

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