THE OPEC FUND APPROACH
OPEC Fund Director-General Abdulhamid Alkhalifa sets out how a new tool makes the institution’s work more e ff ective and e ffi cient to meet rising demand WHY DEVELOPMENT EFFECTIVENESS MATTERS
OPEC Fund Quarterly : The development e ff ectiveness tool was introduced under your leadership of the OPEC Fund. Why is it more important than ever? Abdulhamid Alkhalifa: We have ambitious goals as a development finance institution: We want to expand our activities and step up our delivery of development support. The global environment is volatile, and the challenges are huge. While demand is high, financial means are scarce. In this situation, it is of paramount importance to deploy our funds in the most cost- e ff ective and e ffi cient way. Looking at all our investments through a development e ff ectiveness lens allows us to take informed decisions on how to use our resources to maximize development impact. Tracking development results enables us to be accountable to our stakeholders and to learn from our activities. This is crucial to safeguard the responsible use of the money our shareholders and bond investors have trusted us with, maximize the impact of our projects and share relevant information with co-investors and other stakeholders for strengthening existing and building new relationships on the basis of mutual trust.
OFQ : Is this the first time the OPEC Fund has looked at its development e ff ectiveness? AA: Since inception, our work has always aimed to improve the livelihoods of our beneficiaries. Our institution has been around for nearly half a century. In that time, the world has, in a way, gotten smaller while the problems it faces have gotten bigger. Issues are no longer just regional, but global. But so too are opportunities for cooperation and collaboration. The OPEC Fund sees itself as part of the global coalition to deliver the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainability. As part of our more recent e ff orts, we took the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as our starting point and lens to view how we had been working for so many decades. OFQ : What are the foundations of the refined approach to development e ff ectiveness? AA: Our anchor is the OPEC Fund Results Framework (OFRF), based on the guidance set out in the Strategic Framework 2030 and approved by our member countries in September 2022. This results framework tracks key corporate performance, strategic
PROFILE: ABDULHAMID ALKHALIFA Abdulhamid Alkhalifa has been Director-General of the OPEC Fund since November 2018 and was recently reappointed for a second term. He previously served at the World Bank and held senior positions in his native Saudi Arabia.
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