Managing Director meets the Ambassador of Kenya
Ambassador Sheikh Mohammed Belal, Managing Director of the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) visited the Embassy of Kenya, The Hague for a courtesy call on H.E. Ms. Margaret Shava, Ambassador of the Republic of Kenya to the Netherlands. They discussed the activities of the Common Fund for Commodities as well as ways of future cooperation at this challenging time of rising commodity prices and the war in Ukraine.
During the discussion following an introductory presentation on CFC, Ambassador Belal briefed Ambassador Shava on the current discrepancy between CFC’s financing resources and the increase of requests for services received by the CFC through the Call for Proposals process. Ambassador Belal requested Ambassador Shava to help CFC with their success stories and thereby help CFC to improve the format and character of CFC projects.
Ambassador Belal also shared information on the ongoing initiative on the formulation of a fund entitled Agricultural Commodity Transformation (ACT) Fund (formerly referred to as ‘CIIF’) designed to enable CFC to contribute more for alleviation of poverty. Once the ACT Fund is formed, member countries are welcome to join this impact investment fund as anchor investors.
Ambassador Shava appreciated the CFC for taking the initiative of launching this ACT Fund and assured to support both the process and construct through necessary coordination with all member states. Ambassador Shava, in her capacity as the Vice Chairperson for the African member states of CFC, shall convene an event in the summer to launch the fund and coordinate other activities of CFC. Ambassador Shava also desired CFC to work with the European Union and other OECD countries so that more resources are leveraged for climate action in Africa and beyond.
On her part, H.E. Ms. Margaret Shava assured that she will also explore examples of success stories in Kenya so that CFC could implement similar, even more, impactful pilots in the future. Ambassador Shava expressed her appreciation for the good work of CFC and hoped that further collaboration could be explored in the future.
Ambassador Belal assured to pursue more innovative outreaches in the days to come to make the services of CFC available to as many people as possible in the commodity dependent developing world, with a heightened sense of innovations and creativity.