Côte d'Ivoire has moved from fragility to eligible for the African Development Bank's (AfDB) non-concessional window, the first time in the institution's history.

"Last week, Côte d'Ivoire qualified to move to the bank's AfDB window, the first time in the institution's history that a country has moved from fragility to non-concessional window eligible. Impressive speed, extraordinary achievement," said Thursday in Abidjan the president of the institution, Akinwumi Adesina.

Mr. Adesina was speaking at the opening of the 5th Extraordinary Meeting of the AfDB Board of Governors in Abidjan, in the presence of the Head of State of Côte d'Ivoire, Mr. Alassane Ouattara. A session that devoted the 7th general increase in the Bank's capital.

This meeting notably increased the AfDB's capital from $93 billion to $208 billion, an increase of 125%. The Governors had given the AfDB Group Advisory Committee the green light to start discussions.

The President of the AfDB Group welcomed the "vision and leadership of President Ouattara", whose country has made "impressive and dazzling progress", allowing today the State of Côte d'Ivoire to be one of the fastest growing economies to the world.

Accompanied by the Bank, Côte d'Ivoire has set up numerous infrastructures. The group has just given its support to the bold efforts of the accelerated social inclusion policy of the government of President Ouattara.

"Congratulations to President Ouattara and congratulations to the government and people of Côte d'Ivoire! It is this kind of rapid progress and success that we are witnessing in Africa that inspires and inspires the AfDB to do everything it can to accelerate the continent's growth and development," he continued.

To make its growth more inclusive, the Ivorian government has set up with the help of its partners including the AfDB a social program amounting to 2.5 billion dollars (1,469 billion CFA francs) for the period 2019-2020 to support the fields of rural electricity, health and education and rural roads.

The AfDB has developed solutions adapted to the capacities of each African country, through sovereign or sovereign guaranteed operations. There are AfDB (middle-income countries) sovereign operations, concessional financing from the African Development Fund (ADF) and mixed countries, particularly eligible for AfDB and ADF resources.

For the concessional financing of the African Development Fund (ADF), there are more than thirty "low-income countries" divided into three categories, including the "ordinary, advanced and atypical" categories.

Eligible low-income African countries can now obtain non-concessional resources from the Sovereign Loan Window of the African Development Bank (AfDB). However, they will have to have a low or moderate risk of over-indebtedness.