African Development Bank, Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) Join Forces to Strengthen Prevention, Resilience and Development Investment in Africa

The African Development Bank (AfDB) (https://www.AfDB.org) and the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) have signed a Letter of Intent to establish a framework for closer cooperation, aligning community-led prevention efforts with development investment in fragile and conflict-affected settings across Africa.

The Letter of Intent was signed on Monday 21 September on the margins of the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly, by Ms Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, Senior Vice President of the African Development Bank Group and Mr Stefano Manservisi, Chair of the GCERF Governing Board. The signing took place at the African Union’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York.

By bringing together GCERF’s community-level knowledge and local partnerships with the African Development Bank’s analytical expertise and operational reach, this partnership unlocks new opportunities to connect local communities with development finance, investment and economic opportunityy.

The two organisations share the view that fragility, exclusion and limited socio-economic opportunities can cultivate conditions conducive to violent extremism. Connecting investment in prevention of violent extremism with wider development efforts can mitigate the risk of instability, protect development gains and strengthen the sustainability of development investments.

“This partnership reflects the simple but important idea that investment in the prevention of violent extremism is also an investment in sustainable development. By bringing GCERF’s community-level experience together with the African Development Bank’s development expertise and reach, we can build stronger connections between local resilience, economic opportunity and long-term stability,” said Mr. Manservisi, Chair of the GCERF Governing Board.

“This is where our collaboration can make a real difference for both populations and countries. The Bank can help de-risk investment, strengthen institutions and align financing with national priorities. GCERF complements this with community-level prevention, local engagement and adaptive learning approaches that are especially relevant in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Together, we can ensure that resilience is not only financed from the top down, but shaped and sustained from the ground up,” said Ms Akin-Olugbade.

Under the new partnership, the African Development Bank and GCERF will combine community-level insights with development expertise to help shape more effective policies and investments in fragile settings. The collaboration will also promote shared learning and identify opportunities for joint initiatives that strengthen prevention, resilience and national development outcomes. It reinforces a people-centred approach to fragility and advances the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus by linking local prevention efforts with broader development investment.

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