At the margins of the Conference of Parties (COP16) being held in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a Parallel Co-Financing Agreement was signed on 03/12/2024 between the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) aimed at providing a framework of development cooperation, whereby the Parties agree to provide parallel financing in support of sovereign projects selected on the basis of mutual priority to both parties.

The Parallel Co-Financing Agreement was signed on behalf of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development by Mr. Waleed Sh. Al-Bahar, Acting Director General, and on behalf of the International Fund for Agricultural Development by Mr. Alvaro Lario Hervas, President of IFAD.

The Agreement aims to operationalize the expressed interests of both Parties to co-finance development projects through concessional loans provided to mutually selected countries and entering into the aforementioned Agreement to set the principles of such collaboration. The principles include the identification of projects that may be suitable for co-financing, periodic discussion of priority sectors and countries, as well as regular review of ongoing and future co-financing collaborations.

This Agreement marks the second endorsement of formalized cooperation as the Parties have previously signed a Memorandum of Understanding dated 12 February 2018 with the purpose of establishing a framework for strategic and operational cooperation between the institutions.