AFD // 2021 Universal Registration Document
STATEMENT OF NON-FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE 2 Background
Background The Agence Française de Développement (AFD) group finances and supports transitions in all the regions where it works towards a fairer and more sustainable world. It implements the priorities defined by the government in the field of development policy, in accordance with France’s international commitments, within the reference framework set by the 2030 Agenda (1) and by the Paris Climate Agreement. The Programming Law N°2021-1031 of 4 August 2021 related to the solidarity-based development and the fight against global inequalities sets these major goals and enacts the integration of Expertise France, the interministerial agency for international technical cooperation, within the AFD Group at 1 ɸ January 2022. This integration gives the Group an additional and complementary lever to achieve its objectives. It will enable AFD Group to provide its partners, both public and private, with a complete and combined range of financial and technical solutions (design, financing and implementation of projects, sectoral expertise services); it will strengthen the effectiveness and clarity of the French system for implementing its development policy, which is essential in a context of growth of the global financing offer and the emergence of new players disrupting the previous balances; and will contribute to developing partnerships in the service of development policy, with French, European and international players. Over this second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, AFD was able to respond to the crisis while remaining on course with its mandate and strategy. Africa remains the primary region of intervention. The majority of grants were directed to priority countries to support the health, education and vocational training sectors as well as agriculture and food security, while promoting gender equality. Despite the Covid-19 crisis, the AFD Groupmet its climate targets in 2021 with €5.99bn in financing, i.e. 56% of commitments with climate co-benefits, thus exceeding the target of 50%. The adaptation finance target was exceeded with an amount of €1.96bn, i.e. nearly a third of total climate finance. The AFD Group thus enables France to meet the commitments made and reaffirmed at COP26 of contributing €6bn per year to climate finance for developing countries. Among the significant strategic advances made over the past year, it is worth highlighting, in particular, the approval of the “100% Social link” strategy in March ɸ 2021 by the Board of Directors. This strategy has two overall goals: the fight against inequalities, and for inclusion and living together. In terms of gender equality, all indicators were met. Commitments whose main or secondary objective is gender equality represent 50%, for a target of 45%. The share of grants with a main objective (CAD 2) promoting gender equality reached 25.6%, against a target of 15%. The AFD Group followed up on its “feminist agenda” by
contributing to the success of the Generation Equality Forum (FGE – Forum Génération Égalité ) and the roll out of the Fund to Support Feminist Organisations (FSOF – Fonds de soutien aux organisations féministes ). Furthermore, AFD has issued thematic bonds since 2014, and in 2020 it renewed its framework to extend it to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), thus reflecting the Group’s strategy. In 2021, the issue of two thematic bonds made it possible to achieve almost half of the year’s refinancing through a sustainable format. Lastly, the AFD Group continued to develop its partnerships with its bilateral and multilateral donor partners, as well as its commitment to the new global coalition of public development banks, at the second Finance in Common Summit organised by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome in October of 2021. AFD Group’s operations as well as its internal functioning are supported by the Corporate Social Responsibility - CSR ɸ - policy (2018-2022), based on its six major commitments (2) . As such, it endeavours to drive the Group’s excellence, consistency between its comitments and the quality of its work, and foster cohesion within its teams. With regard to the integration of sustainable development within operations, AFD updated its exclusion list in 2021, by specifying and strengthening its red lines of intervention, in particular in terms of climate, preservation of biodiversity, and human rights. This exclusion list will come into force in 2022 for new projects. Internally, AFD carried out major projects in 2021, for example overhauling the ethics system, which will now be based on a single Ethics Charter for the entire Group, setting out the values and commitments that the Group has set for itself and expects from all its employees; the creation of an Ethics board was decided in 2021, and will be implemented over 2022. Its composition will reflect the diversity of the Group’s workforce and it will organise open Ethics Dialogue sessions. In terms of human resources, AFD first and foremost ensured, monitored and implemented all the necessary actions to protect its teams in France and abroad, in view of the evolution of the health crisis. Notably, it adapted its working methods (face-to-face/remote) and multiplied initiatives (webinars, surveys, conferences, ɸ etc.) to preserve social cohesion despite the long periods of lockdown or limited presence on its premises. On the one hand, the systems for the prevention of psychosocial risks remained in place, while, on the other, the reflection on the workload and the support to managers to help them organise hybrid work were continued over a period still strongly marked by telework. Lastly, the works carried out during the last two years on professional equality and diversity resulted in the obtention in 2021 of a double certification dedicated to these fields granted by AFNOR.
(1) Adopted on 25 September 2015 by the Heads of State and Government at the Special Summit of the United Nations on sustainable development, the 2030 Agenda sets 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) broken down into 169 targets to meet the challenges of globalisation based on the three components – environmental, social and economic – of sustainable development. (2) The CSR policy breaks down into six commitments: 1 – Integrating sustainable development into operations; 2 – Governance and ownership of social responsibility; 3 – Transparency and dialogue with stakeholders; 4 – Professional ethics and financial exemplarity; 5 – Socially responsible and equitable management of employees; 6 – Controlling the direct environmental and societal footprint.
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2021 UNIVERSAL REGISTRATION DOCUMENT
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