MCDF and Ethiopia Strengthen Partnership to Accelerate Infrastructure Development for Greater Regional Connectivity

A Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) delegation led by CEO Zhongjing Wang held high-level bilateral meetings with leadership from Ethiopia’s Finance Ministry and Ministry of Transport and Logistics, and Ethiopian Electric Power in Addis Ababa on 19 March. They discussed joint action for accelerating priority infrastructure development for connecting Ethiopia and neighboring countries.

CEO Wang, accompanied by MCDF’s Monde Nyambe and Erick Mariga, met respectively with Finance Minster Hon. Mr. Ahmed Shide; State Minister of Transport and Logistics Hon. Mr. Dhenge Boru Kosi; and Engineer Mr. Ashebir Balcha, CEO of Ethiopian Electric Power.

Minister Shide called for rapidly building collaboration with MCDF to harness its support for promoting sustainable, high-quality connectivity infrastructure investment. He underscored the importance of realizing tangible results to help ensure landlocked Ethiopia’s energy and logistics infrastructure systems can facilitate greater economic growth, regional integration, and trade through improved connectivity.

State Minister Boru Kosi expressed his interest in cooperating with MCDF to address Ethiopia’s project preparation needs for dry ports and logistics hubs, cold chain and warehousing infrastructure, railway expansion, and digitalization of logistics to accommodate growing trade volumes and reduce logistics costs.

CEO Balcha noted that MCDF project preparation and capacity building support could boost the country’s renewable energy diversification and generation capacity to help realize its ambition to export electricity to neighboring Djibouti, Kenya, and Sudan and become a clean energy hub in Africa.

CEO Wang thanked each of the officials for their trust in MCDF and committed to working closely with Ethiopia on project preparation, capacity building, and information-sharing activities that could advance the country’s connectivity infrastructure priorities and in turn promote sustainable growth for all.

“Ethiopia presents a strong pipeline of transformative connectivity infrastructure opportunities,” said CEO Wang. “Our focus now is to move quickly from dialogue to delivery.”

CEO Wang expressed special appreciation to Minister Shide for accepting his invitation for Ethiopia to participate in strategic discussions in 2026 on MCDF’s next phase, from January 2027, and personally joining the first meeting of the MCDF Finance Facility replenishment exercise in Beijing on 30 March to provide guest remarks.