DEVELOPMENT

1 Executive summary
What futures for AFD in 2025 and beyond?
AFD’s current identity is evident in its name and signature phrase: it is at the same time an
agency and a bank. It is French and its ambition is to contribute to “shaping sustainable
futures”. The various foresight scenarios and analysis of their possible consequences show
that these cornerstones of its identity could be jostled and need to evolve.
By way of a summary, the figure below attempts to illustrate the multiple forms that AFD
could assume in the future by setting out the impacts that each of the four foresight
scenarios could have on the founding identity of the Agency.
The current situation and the relatively short-term outlook (from now until 2020) as to
how the context surrounding AFD will evolve seem to confirm:
◗ its banking side (recent decisions to overcome the current constraints on its own funds
and capital base);
◗ its role as a pivotal French bilateral operator (closer ties with the Caisse des Dépôts et
Consignations (CDC), transfer of governance, additional budgetary efforts by the State);
◗ all of this in the framework of a pact for sustainable development, both at the national
level (the French Government’s announcements that AFD’s activity will increase to fund
sustainable development challenges as well as those set out by the COP21) and internationally
(adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris agreement
on climate change).
Today, the trend that seems to be taking shape is one of an “AFD+” with enhanced
resources and expanded geographic and thematic mandates. It continues to operate in
line with traditional donor rationales, while at the same time working more with local
governments, businesses, and civil society and endeavoring to give its influence a fresh
impetus. However, the long-term foresight analysis underlines the apparent weakness, or
at least the precarious balance, that characterizes this trend in virtually all of the scenarios.
Foresighting for Development
Development agencies, steering through future worlds. Afd2025
I
In the “Impasse” scenario, for example, AFD’s capacity to continue operating on a banking
model could be undermined by financial crises, making it difficult to access market finance
and/or impossible to find solvent borrowers. In the “Babel 3.0” scenario, where blocs of
countries would be competing on different development models, the survival of a global
sustainable development pact would no longer be guaranteed. In a world of “Greening
without States”, the role of States would be partly wiped off the sustainable development
agenda. This could lead AFD to approach non-state actors in order to marshal and use
resources. It could even lead the Agency to modify its governance system by opening it
up to private actors. AFD’s traditional intervention model, which relies heavily on territorial
logics, could also be called into question given that territorial entities would no
longer necessarily be the only melting pot for collective action in this scenario, characterized
by hyper-connectivity. Even in the more optimistic scenario, “Aligning Aspirations”,
07