IMPACT – ANIMA releases its Annual Report 2019
Published on 29 September 2020
Country : Euromed
The General Assembly of the ANIMA Investment Network has approved the activity report of the association during their meeting on 28th September 2020.
The year 2019 corresponded to a new mandate of the Board of Directors which steers the association ANIMA Investment Network, with a strong will to launch a dynamic and collective approach. The program undertaken consisted of an approach based on consultation between Board members and with the members of the association, with in particular a desire to take into account the new geopolitical and geostrategic realities of the countries of Europe and the southern Mediterranean.
In January, the Board of Directors held its very first meeting in the form of a consultation workshop to outline the main lines of the mandate. These priorities were refined and approved by the General Assembly of members in June 2018, in an open forum that gave a large place to collective intelligence. Important choices have been made to guide our action during the coming term:
- Develop initiatives to promote investments with strong local impacts and contributing to sustainable development, as well as access to financing for SMEs and start-ups.
- Professionalize and multiply the capacity building activities.
- To develop the network by recruiting new members, and open it to African countries.
- Strengthen communication and information sharing between members and countries associated with the network, in particular by developing new tools.
In parallel with the implementation of this participatory approach, the ANIMA team and the network partners have implemented a particularly dense work program with 91 events gathering more than 3000 participants including 1400 companies. The southern Mediterranean countries were the majority among these participants, with the Tunisians, Moroccans and Egyptians in the lead, followed by Palestinians and Lebanese. The participation of sub-Saharan Africa increased from 7% to 18% between 2018 and 2019, which illustrates the network’s desire to open up to the entire continent.
The impact of the network’s activity is continuously increasing as the number of people trained (879 in 2019) and the number of business meetings organized (1088) have tripled over the last two years.
ANIMA has also strengthened its institutional partnerships in 2019, including new partnerships developed with OECD, UNCTAD, Agence de l’Oriental, the Region Sud-Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur, MedCités, Aix-Marseille University and Business France.