Foreign news

Infrastructure For Tomorrow: Interview With AIIB Vice President On Response To Future Challenges

Published

4 years ago

January 17, 2021

In the five years since it was founded, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has approved more than 20 billion dollars of financing for over 100 projects. Last year, the bank set up a COVID-19 crisis recovery facility, offering loans of up to 13 billion U.S. dollars. Our reporter Feng Yilei talked with its vice president, Sir Danny Alexander, to find out more about the bank’s strategies and response to the global crisis.

SIR DANNY ALEXANDER AIIB Vice President and Corporate Secretary “And obviously, this year, for many of our members, the focus is shifting to vaccine and mass vaccination campaigns. And that’s particular Challenge, particularly in developing countries.”

FENG YILEI CGTN Reporter “Some say, compared to your counterparts, including the World Bank and ADB you’re not doing enough in terms of such medical aid. So what exact role can we expect the AIIB to play?”

SIR DANNY ALEXANDER Vice President and Corporate Secretary “We will operate in a way very much in coordination with our multilateral peers, like the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, in coordination with the global vaccination organizations. But more broadly, we see there’s a need for a continuing major focus beyond the pandemic on upgrading health and social infrastructure. If populations aren’t healthy, economies cannot function. That’s one of the most obvious lessons of the period of the last year or so.”

FENG YILEI CGTN Reporter “So in that case, how will you reallocate and rebalance your resources and efforts to make sure the new strategy will both pay off in short term and long run?”

SIR DANNY ALEXANDER AIIB Vice President and Corporate Secretary “I think as countries shift from the immediate pandemic response to thinking about both the immediate and long term economic recovery, which you’re right to say that they need to have, then infrastructure will be a key focus in many of those places.

“And in a sense, the contribution that multilateral development banks can make through our investments is to demonstrate through the projects we invest in, that there is both a short term and a long term benefit to the kind of infrastructure for tomorrow that we know our members will need. So we’ve invested, for example, in solar power in Egypt and Kazakhstan and other places. We’ve invested in a number of members to support telecommunications infrastructure in Oman and Cambodia. And these investments help to ensure that countries have the systems that they need to respond effectively to crisis, to communicate with people, to enable businesses to function.

“I think what you see increasingly is that the application of technology to traditional infrastructure also helps to get much better value, much better use out of that infrastructure.”

FENG YILEI CGTN Reporter “As you’re going to leverage more international capital, you’re going to attract more private investors and commercial banks which we think, are not on the common ground with MDBs. So in that case, how will you ensure that they can get a considerable return from the cooperation with MDBs?”

SIR DANNY ALEXANDER AIIB Vice President and Corporate Secretary “We have to find ways to attract private capital into our projects, also to apply our capital in a way that can support private sector development and multilateral bring a number of features that help to crowd in more private sector money to projects. You can see from a range of AIIB projects, the way in which we’ve already taken steps in projects which help to bring private capital in through equity investments and green funds, for example, will help to mobilize much more private capital into clean energy, for example, in the coming years.”

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Foreign news

French Envoy Seeks Collaboration With NAN To Boost Seamless Relationship

Published

1 month ago

February 5, 2025

The Gleamer

The new French envoy to Nigeria, Marc Fonbaustier, on Wednesday called for collaboration with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) toward strengthening the mutually beneficial relationship between the two countries.

Fonbaustier, who is the French ambassador to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, made the call when he paid a courtesy visit to Malam Ali Muhammad Ali, NAN’s Managing Director, in Abuja.
The ambassador said that his purpose of visiting was to pay tribute to the MD, and to seek collaboration in three areas with a view to promoting stronger, seamless and fruitful partnership between both countries.

He added that Nigeria and its people were hospitable, especially to the foreigners and ambassadors alike.

He added that Nigeria was a country with so much energy, strength, stamina and so many talents.

In Nigeria, with the population of this size, it is inevitable that the elites of the country are very outstanding, “and there may be a Franco/Nigeria moments now”, he jokes.

According to him, France and Nigeria can collaborate more and learn from each other.
“I could feel it particularly during the state visit of President Bola Tinubu which took place in November 2024.

“I was there and I could see the intensity, the strength and the scope of the partnership, and I am here to scale up that partnership in all sectors.

“I am coming here for three reasons, first, to pay a tribute to the NAN MD and his team for the quality of this agency. We can testify that the contents that you publish are very factual, and also very well set up and structured.

“You do fact checking and you really do try to provide the community with quality information. I think, as a French ambassador, I can recognise that as part of a living democracy,” he said.

The French ambassador said the second reason for the visit was to intimate the NAN MD of France’s eagerness to go on partnership with NAN saying he hoped for assurance of a seamless, fluid and easy relationship.

He said that his third reason stemmed from his observation that NAN recently signed some partnership framework agreements with Egypt and China, saying “it may be time to think of balancing this partnership with others”.

“Especially with French, and to talk with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to see if there’s ground for a closer relationship between NAN and AFP.

“Which is also a recognised agency like yours, and I bet you the sky will be the limit to the collaboration, ’’he said.

Responding, the NAN MD informed the envoy that the agency was African’s biggest news content provider on account of its size.

Ali gave the envoy a little details of the agency’s operation and its outreach, saying “as our continent’s biggest news content provider, we have offices nationwide and in selected African countries.

“We have offices in countries such as South Africa, Cote d’ivoire, Addis Ababa, and then we have offices also beyond the shores of Africa. We have in New York and we are the only resident wire service in the United Nations.

“At a time in the past, the agency had 11 foreign offices, including Moscow, and presently, we are trying to re-open some of our shut offices, especially in London.
“We value partnership and understanding that we have with similar news organisation such as Reuters and, incidentally, we have a long standing relationship with AFP which you just raised.
“I know for years we have exchange of news between NAN and AFP but it’s a cooperation that we will like to strengthen and with your greater involvement,’’ he said.

The MD commended the ambassador for reaching out and engaging with some Nigerians communities to douse the tension of the allegation made by the Nigeriens.

He also lauded the envoy’s leadership and visibility to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, “which has helped to douse the perception and misconceptions about France, especially in the Sahel”.
“I think you have helped to reverse some of this perceptions. I thank you for the kind words that you said about the agency and about our management.

“We also see partnership as an important tool in checking the spread of fake news.
“We’ve seen instances where fake news has done great deal of damage, and with the coming of social media it has done even greater damage.

“Our country is facing a lot of challenges, one of which is the increasing insecurity, and the social media has been used by those who do not want to see our country to prosper,” Ali said.
He further said that NAN was a credible news agency that always fact check to correct the wrong narratives by those who are in the business of causing troubles.

He also told the envoy that the agency has its content in the Nigerian indigenous languages, starting with Hausa and it would proceed to Yoruba and Igbo languages later, “then later in future to French.

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