NAIROBI: The African Development Bank held its first meeting with a group of ‍Arab development ‍finance institutions in Abidjan on Tuesday in an effort to ​attract more cash from them as Western donors retreat.

The new president of the ⁠AfDB, Africa's biggest development lender, said closer ties with the Arab Coordination Group ⁠were key to bridging ‌the growing gap in development finance as donor nations including the United States cut spending abroad.

"What is necessary now ⁠is a more structured partnership which is quite strategic," said Sidi Ould Tah, a former finance minister for Mauritania, who took the helm of the AfDB last year.

Tah said working more closely with the ⁠ACG, which includes the Arab ​Bank for Economic Development in Africa, the OPEC Fund for International Development and the Saudi Fund ‍for Development, could mobilise added long-term funding for priorities including industrialisation and job creation.

The sides ​signed a formal declaration setting out the new terms of engagement, including co-financing priorities, the AfDB said.

Rami Ahmad, vice president for operations at the OPEC Fund for International Development, said the new approach would involve the creation of a coordination platform to target long-term, big-ticket spending across regions, rather than one-off investments in individual countries.

The Arab financial institutions have provided billions of dollars for Africa's development over the years in projects such as infrastructure, sanitation and ⁠farming.

Tah said "external shocks" had widened the development financing ‌gap - the shortfall between current financing and the amount of money the AfDB says is needed to invest in ports, agriculture and other ‌infrastructure to ⁠enable development across Africa's economies.

In December, he pegged the gap at $402 billion annually. (Reporting by ⁠Duncan Miriri; Editing by Libby George and Alison Williams)