Djibouti Economy and Finance Minister lyas Moussa Dawaleh and Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) CEO Zhongjing Wang, accompanied by their teams, met to discuss priorities for connectivity investment support and strategic partnership development on 12 January in Djibouti City.
After meeting each other alongside the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Annual Meeting in June 2025 in Beijing, CEO Wang expressed his appreciation to Minister Dawaleh for welcoming his visit to Djibouti. He underscored MCDF’s commitment to deepening cooperation with Djibouti to support the connectivity infrastructure needs of East Africa and beyond which also benefit the country.
Minister Dawaleh and CEO Wang noted Djibouti’s critical geostrategic position at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and Djibouti’s role as the primary maritime gateway and trade channel for neighboring landlocked Ethiopia.
They also acknowledged the complex challenges facing the Horn of Africa and Red Sea region which affect key shipping lanes. In this context, Minister Dawaleh and CEO Wang affirmed Djibouti’s key role in ensuring regional stability, connectivity development, and trade growth.
Minister Dawaleh articulated his desire for MCDF to work closely with Djibouti in advancing connectivity priorities that align with the country’s national development objectives. He said they include digital infrastructure and rural connectivity, with a focus on building smart social infrastructure in health, education, and social services.
He also called for strong Djibouti-MCDF collaboration on project preparation to foster successful engagement and financing with International Financial Institutions (IFI) and partners, institutional capacity building to address debt sustainability, public financial management, and national development planning, and broader knowledge support through training, skills development, and learning platforms.
CEO Wang thanked Minister Dawaleh for his remarks and emphasized their compatibility with MCDF’s mandate to promote sustainable, high-quality connectivity infrastructure investment in developing countries through partnerships. He highlighted MCDF’s continued rapid growth in grant support for project preparation and capacity building in Africa and recent information-sharing activities covering topics relevant to the continent such as IFI lessons and approaches for developing green and efficient ports and digital infrastructure.
Minister Dawaleh welcomed CEO Wang’s invitation to Djibouti to contribute to the formation of MCDF’s new operational strategy as part of its upcoming replenishment exercise, with the goal of shaping MCDF in ways that can optimize the benefits of its support.
Minister Dawaleh and CEO Wang and their teams agreed that the budding partnership between Djibouti and MCDF is not solely about financing but about supporting long-term and inclusive development impacts through effective planning, capacity development, and knowledge exchange.
Contact
David Hendrickson
Senior Communications Officer
Mobile: +86 185 0114 6758
david.hendrickson@themcdf.org
