Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt), May 27, GNA – The African Development Bank (AfDB) ended its 58th annual meetings on Friday, with a forward-looking outlook to build Africa as a resilient economy with all development partners working together.
Amid the current economic crisis in many parts of the continent, there is a clarion call for stronger partnerships to ensure speedy recovery, especially for countries that had limited capacity to surpass the challenges.
Some going through debt treatments for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, while others, including Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have had the Fund approve their respective loan-support programmes.
Dr Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, President, AfDB, who spoke at the closing ceremony of the annual meetings, was confident that with a greater synergy among all development stakeholders, “Africa will shine.”
“Let’s leave Sharm El Sheikh with a greater commitment to working together, supporting your bank [AfDB], supporting Africa and building a more resilient and prosperous Africa and stay with Africa,” he encouraged.
The meetings, held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, brought together more than 1,000 people across all AfDB member countries and non-regional members together to share ideas on mobilising more private sector financing for climate and green growth in Africa.
Dr Adesina’s optimism stemmed from the report of the Bank’s 2023 African Economic Outlook, which observed that despite the confluence of multiple shocks, growth across all five African regions was positive.
The report indicated that Africa achieved an average growth rate of 3.8 per cent in 2022, surpassing the global average of 3.4 per cent in 2022, with a projected growth rate of 4.1 per cent for both 2023 and 2024.
“I firmly believe that the closing of this year’s annual meetings is not an end, but a new starting point to look into the future. Now is a call for action,” Mr Hassan Abdalla, Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, and immediate past Chairperson of the Boards of Governors of AfDB said.
At the end of the meetings, participants, through a series of knowledge events, underscored the need to increase private sector investment through coordination between all development actors.
Africa requires some US$213.4 million annually and $2.7 trillion by 2030 through private sector support for adaptation and mitigation efforts against climate change to engender the continent’s green growth.
The creation of synergies between different programmes, sources of finance and development strategies, and aligning them with the priorities in the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063 on “The Africa We Want,” was highlighted at the meeting.
The Agenda 2063, which is in its tenth year, is the continent’s strategic framework to prioritise inclusive social and economic development, continental and regional integration, democratic governance and peace and security.
Meanwhile, the Board of Governors of AfDB in their communique at the end of the annual meetings welcomed the launch of the Alliance for Green Infrastructure (AGIA).
Through AGIA, the Bank and several partners are seeking to green Africa’s infrastructure and mobilising $10 billion to cover the incremental costs of green, low-carbon and resilient infrastructure in the drive towards net zero.
The Governors made a call in changing the current global financial architecture, emphasising on the role of multilateral development banks in address those challenges in line with AfDB’s mission, incentives, business models, and financial capacity.
They also commended the Bank Group for achieving US$1billion of financing through its Affirmative Finance Facility for Women in Africa (AFAWA) and mainstreaming gender across all its operations, including through strengthened measurement of gender impacts, reporting and monitoring.
It is expected that in the months ahead, efforts would be geared towards implementing outcomes of the annual meetings till next year, where a reflection would be done on the progress made as Kenya hosts the 2024 meetings.
Next year’s AfDB annual meetings would take place between May 27 and May 31.
