AFD // 2021 Universal Registration Document

MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

Message from the CEO

concrete materialisation of these financial commitments, illustrated by the high level of disbursements, which amounted to €8.5bn in 2021. In 2021, the year also served as a reminder of the strength of our qualitative trajectory, set by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the compass of our action. Pursuant to our strategic plan, we met our “100% Paris Agreement” commitment, recording €6bn in climate co-benefit commitments, as well as our “100% social link” objective. For example, 50% of our projects contributed to gender equality. Without forgetting, of course, our contribution to peace-building efforts in crisis areas, and first and foremost in the Sahel, where €210M in funding was granted last year. Lastly, we continued to implement a partnership policy, including through the Team Europe format. Re-elected as the Chair of the International Development Finance Club (IDFC), AFD remains very committed to the Finance in Common Summit (FiCS) movement, which brings together the 530 public development banks, and third edition of which will take place in Abidjan in October 2022, co-organised by the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank. These results are part of an unprecedented institutional reinforcement of the French development policy with the unanimous adoption, on 4 August 2021, of the programming law on solidarity-based development and the fight against global inequalities. This legislative framework places development policy at the same level as other major public policies, through clear and ambitious programming. A concrete translation of the presidential goal in this field, the law provides for an increase in the loans allocated to Official Development Assistance (ODA), from 0.55% of GNI in

2022 to 0.7% in 2025 – a historic target never before achieved. Lastly, this law ratifies Parliament’s recognition of AFD’s essential role in solidarity partnerships. It is ultimately a larger and stronger group that continued to evolve in 2021. The law of 4 August made it possible to integrate Expertise France into the Group, as of 1 January 2022, in order to provide a complete range of technical and financial products for international development. From 2021, AFD’s ability to act as a group was notably demonstrated by the amounts involved in joint projects implemented by Expertise France and AFD, amounting to €80M. AFD now has all the instruments to implement its policy. The expansion of the Group comes at the end of a year of significant financial consolidation, with €298M in consolidated net income and an increase in the valuations of the Group’s equity portfolio, as well as a return to normal of our cost of risk. The success of our issuance policy should also be noted: 48% of the 2021 financing programme was carried out in the form of green bonds. Moreover, the Group’s equity was reinforced with €1.4bn in CET1 capital. To conclude, it is worth highlighting the mobilisation of our teams, deeply committed to a world in common, which is being pursued in a European and international environment destabilised by the war in Ukraine. Relying on Proparco, Expertise France and AFD employees, as well as on the diversity of its portfolio of instruments, the newly formed Group is now, more than ever, able to contribute to crisis response and act in the service of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement.

Eighty years after its creation by General de Gaulle on 2 December 1941, the AFD Group continues its relentless quest for impact. It is in this spirit that AFD, guided by the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations, maintained a very high level of approvals in 2021, to the tune of €12.1bn, to finance nearly 1,000 projects in 115 countries. On the strength of its humanist mission, AFD works “alongside others” as part of an offer resolutely focused on its customers and partners. First, by supporting their initiatives very early on, as evidenced by the ramping up of project preparation funds such as FAPS and FEXTE, and by supporting their diversity. This is the meaning of AFD’s “non-sovereign” commitment, more than half of the financing of which - exactly 55% - benefited, in 2021, civil society actors, local authorities, NGOs, and entrepreneurs. The funding granted under the “CSO Initiatives” strategy continued to increase, reaching €116M in 2021. We also undertook initiatives to support companies weakened by the collateral effects of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic: thanks to the mobilisation of our teams, €600M were rolled out in 2021 as part of the Choose Africa initiative. In line with this counter-cyclical action, the moratoriums granted were also extended. Lastly, by providing a

Rémy Rioux CEO

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2021 UNIVERSAL REGISTRATION DOCUMENT

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