MCDF and IFAD Discuss Tools and Approaches to Enhance Connectivity Investment Partnerships

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Associate Vice President, Mr. Donal Brown, and Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) CEO Zhongjing Wang held a bilateral meeting at the MCDF Secretariat in Beijing on 1 July. Together with their teams, they discussed tools and approaches for enhancing connectivity infrastructure investment through partnerships.

CEO Wang thanked Mr. Brown for IFAD’s active pursuit of MCDF project preparation and capacity building grants to support the upstream development of connectivity projects in developing countries since becoming an MCDF Implementing Partner in 2024.

Mr. Brown and his team expressed their hope to collaborate with MCDF on a greater number of projects in Africa, in areas such as corridor development, and noted that IFAD has made internal adjustments to more efficiently align its funding applications with MCDF grant eligibility requirements.

Opportunities to broaden connectivity support beyond cross-border infrastructure, to include rural market access, value chains, and health, education, and other social sectors, were also discussed. Both sides agreed that information and knowledge-sharing to build the capacity of governments, New Partners (developing country financiers), and other development practitioners to apply International Financial Institution (IFI) standards in connectivity infrastructure projects remains critical.

CEO Wang and the MCDF team thanked IFAD for co-organizing the MCDF Introductory Digital Infrastructure Workshop Series earlier this year and helping to guide MCDF’s broader information-sharing activities as an IFI member of the MCDF Coordination Committee.

IFAD welcomed MCDF’s invitation to collaborate on a digital infrastructure conference in Africa in December 2026 and a workshop on corridor development that is in MCDF’s information and knowledge-sharing event pipeline for 2027.

CEO Wang thanked IFAD for its participation in MCDF’s first two replenishment meetings this year, in March in Beijing and June in Shanghai. He provided an update on the progress of MCDF’s strategy and operational policy development, as shaped by the feedback and suggestions of country and IFI participants, and invited IFAD to join the third and final MCDF replenishment meeting in September.