AfDB seeks higher role for Africa in transforming global financial architecture

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•Reform, governance top 2024 AGM in Kenya

Building a global financial architecture is fair to all, especially Africa, and seeking a greater role of countries in the continent in the reform process will top discussion at this year’s Annual General Meeting of the African Development Bank (AfBD) Group to be held in Kenya from May 27 to 31, 2024.

The AGM, marking the bank’s 60th anniversary, will also seek consensus from about 4,000 delegates expected to converge in Kenya on how the continent could retool its governance structure, harness its rich resources, and seek global collaboration to meet the most pressing needs, including ending poverty.

On Wednesday, at a virtual press conference ahead of the meeting addressed by the Secretary-General, Prof. Vincent Nmehielle, and Chief Economist and Vice President for Economic Governance and Knowledge Management, Kevin Urama, the bank laid the plans for the regional meeting themed “Africa’s Transformation, the African Development Bank Group, and the Reform of the Global Financial Architecture’.

The duo noted that the events would offer a blueprint on which the bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) can respond better and faster to scale up resources for the continent’s sustainable development agenda.

Nmehielle said the bank’s governors would engage with the President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, on options for development partners to respond to the call to work better together to significantly scale up resources for sustainable development.

The Agenda 2063 laid out programmes for pulling Africa out of what many authorities have described as self-inflicted challenges and repositioning the continent as a key player in global socio-economic affairs. But implementation of the programmes has been lethargic with critical milestones already missed in the agenda implemented by the African Union Commission.

But the AfDB President has stressed that the days of talk shows are over, pushing action-based deliberations through the bank’s flagship events – AGM and the African Market Days, a deal-making event held yearly.

Representatives of the bank said the coming AGM follows the tradition – bringing African leaders and development partners to engage and commit to agreed terms.

“Despite a sustained economic growth over the past two decades, Africa’s economic transformation remains incomplete…The knowledge events will, therefore, explore how best to fast-track structural transformation across the continent. The events will also address the importance of a reconfigured global financial architecture as an engine for structural transformation,” the Secretary-General told journalists.

Elaborating on some of the key knowledge events to be held during the meetings structured around its theme, Urama said the Presidential Dialogue would bring heads of state and governors together to take stock of measures and reforms not only in a retrospective manner but also as a basis to realign new thoughts and action plans.

“In all our research we have found that financing has been a major constraint of accelerated transformation on the continent,” Urama said. He added that an event on measuring the green wealth of the continent would unpack “how Africa’s natural resources could drive the transformation of the continent even better than in previous years”.

“In 2024 we see the continent growing around 4 per cent – much higher than the global average. Over 15 countries were even higher at five per cent,” he said, noting that Africa is a key participant in the ongoing dialogue around global architectural reforms.

The statutory annual meetings are the AfBD Group’s most important event of the calendar year. The 59th Annual Meetings of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank and the 50th Meetings of the Board of Governors of the African Development Fund (ADF) will also take place at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi.