/Cooperation Fund for Project Preparation in the Greater Mekong Subregion and in Other Specific Asian Countries

The Cooperation Fund for Project Preparation in the Greater Mekong Subregion and in Other Specific Asian Countries or AFD GMS is a single-donor trust fund established in partnership with Agence Française de Développement (AFD) in 2004 to promote project preparatory technical assistance operations to be designed, processed, and administered at the sole discretion of ADB focusing on regional cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). The fund focuses on planning, financing, and implementing operations to help increase resource flows, assist with trade facilitation, disseminate new technology, and enrich networking expertise in the GMS. It specifically focuses on implementing high-priority subregional projects in transport, energy, telecommunications, environment, human resource development, tourism, trade facilitation, private sector investment, and agriculture.

In 2022, ADB and AFD signed an agreement that would replenish the fund with €1 million ($1.0 million equivalent) and effectively extend the validity of the original agreement to 31 December 2025. The trust fund also approved $500,000 in support for the Philippines: Accelerating Climate Resilience in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and the Environment. This project will support the Philippine government in moving forward on the climate resilience reform agenda of ADB’s Climate Change Action Program through a coordinated program of diagnostic and analytical work, policy advice, capacity building, and multi-stakeholder dialogues. It also contributed to the Cambodia: Agricultural Value Chain Infrastructure Improvement Project with additional financing of $300,000. The project aims to tackle the core problems of low productivity, low-value addition, and low resource efficiency in Cambodia’s agriculture sector.