Sipopo Conference Centre, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea | 12th July 2025
• Your Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, esteemed partners,
1. As we come to the conclusion of this remarkable gathering in beautiful Malabo, we collectively carry the hopes of our 1.5 billion African brothers and sisters who, like all of us here, deserve the continent we envision in Agenda 2063.
2. Today’s discussions have shown us something profound: Africa Team is our continental declaration that the time for fragmented approaches has come to an end.
3. As current chair of the inter-RECs coordination platform, I have listened carefully to each Regional Economic Community today, and what strikes me most is how similar our stories are; whether it’s COMESA’s infrastructure corridors, ECOWAS’s energy integration, or IGAD’s climate resilience programs, we all face the same fundamental challenges.
4. We possess bold visions, proven institutions, and bankable projects, but we lack coordinated financing mechanisms that match our continental ambitions. The Africa Team completely changes that equation and decisively overturns that narrative.
5. Let me share what IGAD’s experience teaches us about coordinated action. When we implemented our “One IGAD” approach, moving beyond institutional silos to integrated programming, the transformation was remarkable.
6. Our Climate Prediction Centre now delivers forecasts with 85% accuracy, enabling early action that has saved forty-five thousand lives. Our Conflict Early Warning Mechanism prevented 14 potential conflicts last year alone, preserving over a billion dollars in economic assets. These successes happened despite constrained resources. I therefore invite us to imagine what we could really achieve with Africa Team’s coordinated approach.
7. Just two weeks ago in Seville during the United Nations 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), the IGAD message to the international community was that the Horn of Africa offers unique opportunities for piloting innovative financing mechanisms.
8. Today’s discussions have validated this regional position at a continental scale. We are not asking the world to experiment on us; we are inviting partners to co-create financing solutions that our three trillion-dollar economy and 1.5 billion people require, and Africa Team is that laboratory for innovation.
9. The AU Assembly’s February decision was unequivocal: Africa Team is the strategic framework to operationalize our Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan. Today, we have fulfilled that mandate by providing the operational architecture that transforms political endorsement into programmatic reality. This means moving from concept notes to investment pipelines, harmonizing our approaches while respecting our diversities, and delivering accountability that matches our ambitions.
10. Distinguished partners, you have heard Africa’s unified voice today. We are not asking for charity; we are proposing strategic partnerships. To our development finance institutions, the 180-billion-dollar infrastructure gap we face, the 15 billion dollars for climate resilience that we need, and the 8-billion-dollar food systems transformation system we have designed are actual investment opportunities with proven institutional capacity and demonstrable returns.
11. To our private sector partners, Africa Team de-risks your investments through political endorsements and coordinated frameworks. When you invest in one region’s success, you gain access to continental markets.
12. As we depart from Malabo, IGAD commits to integrating Africa Team principles into all our resource mobilization efforts, sharing our institutional innovations as continental public goods, and advocating relentlessly for the financing innovations Africa requires.
13. I invite our fellow RECs and Regional Mechanisms to do the same and pull together in this one direction. The children of our continent deserve quality education regardless of circumstances. Young entrepreneurs deserve financial services that enable growth. Farmers and pastoralists deserve technologies and markets that reward productivity, and women deserve social and economic emancipation so that they can achieve their full potential as the mothers and nurturers of our continent.
14. Pamoja: the Swahili word that titles our gathering, means “together” in Swahili. Today, we have demonstrated what “together” means for African development financing.
15. Pamoja, we transform challenge into opportunity. Pamoja, we transform potential into prosperity. Pamoja, we transform the narrative from crisis to renaissance.
16. The African Renaissance is not a dream but a tangible process requiring sustained commitment from all of us. In Malabo, we have accelerated this process through a commitment to innovative financing that shall unlock our continent’s extraordinary potential.
17. Africa Team is no longer an initiative we are launching; it is a movement we are joining toward the Africa we want, the Africa we are building, and the Africa we will achieve, one partnership, one program, and one transformed life at a time.
Thank you for your partnership in service of the people we represent.
