Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank
Presidential Dialogue: Africa’s Development Challenges and Opportunities

• Your Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic
  of Ghana,
• Your Excellency, Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal and
  Chairperson of the African Union,
• Your Excellences Heads of State and Government of the Union,
• Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank,
• Distinguished Guests,
• Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasure and an honor to add my voice, on behalf of the African Union Commission, to this important debate, which takes place in an international context plagued by multiple security, health and environmental challenges.

I bring you greetings from Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, who could not be here today due to ongoing Extraordinary Summits meetings currently taking place in Malabo. Your Excellency, President Nana Akufo-Addo, thank you to you and the people of the Republic of Ghana for the wonderful welcome and warm hospitality to ensure that the Annual Meetings of the Africa Development Bank are a success.

My sincere thanks also goes to my dear brother Dr. Adesina for the excellent coordination of what we expect will be robust discussions of the future of our beloved continent. Before the surge of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, our continent’s economic prospects drawn from our latest Africa’s Development Dynamics Report were on a positive track recovering from Covid-19 devastating socio-economic shocks, with an expected 3.9 percent economic growth in 2022, one percentage point lower than the global average of 4.9 percent.

It is now anticipated that macroeconomic fundamentals of our economies will further weaken, more Africans will slide back into extreme poverty, and gains we had made on the SDGs will further erode.

Surely, Aspiration 6 of the African Union Agenda 2063, which speaks about ‘An Africa, whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of African people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children’, is threatened.

To combat this, prioritization of critical sectors such as agriculture, agro-industry and services to shifting from heavy reliance on exports of non-transformed commodities and imports of manufactured goods to a real industrial transformation process, are needed. Producing food, medicines and all the necessary products imported yearly will also allow us to make the most of the USD 110 billion in imports of foodstuffs and USD 16 billion in imports of pharmaceutical products.

Expanding access to better water and sanitation will go a long way in sustaining health and nutrition, thereby improving the quality of life of the People of Africa and their resilience to the growing disruption of climate change.

Furthermore, strengthening the links between debt financing and growth returns for debt sustainability, is of paramount importance. Debt should be used for financing the most productive projects that generate sufficient growth to pay for the debt in the future.

Your Excellences,

Development finance is heavily constrained, just when it is needed the most. This is where facilities such as the African Development Fund are key. During the African Union Assembly this February, our African Heads of State and Government, in Decision 817, called for “a substantial 16th replenishment of the African Development Fund to enable it to meet the growing needs of the continent.”

In this same decision, their Excellences also called for “amendment of the Agreement Establishing the African Development Fund to enable it to seek resources in the financial market for the benefit of fragile African countries and states in transition”.

Our F15 Ministers of Finance during the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, last month, reemphasized this, in their communiqué stating “[that they] call for a substantial and transformative 16th ADF Replenishment and for the ADF to be allowed to go to the market to leverage its equity and raise additional resources to offer at affordable rates to Africa’s low-income countries, in line with the decision of the African Union Heads of State and Government adopted in February 2022.”

ADF has accomplished a lot and Africa needs it to do more, faster and smarter. It has all the backing from the African leadership who also commend it for its ranking among global top two international development institutions for its quality.

This replenishment would be timely as African Union and AfDB are working to kickstart support to our agricultural sectors. I must congratulate my brother, Dr Adesina and your team for the initiative and the recently held Joint Meeting of African Ministers of Agriculture and Ministers of Finance on the African Emergency Food Production Facility. We look forward to a fruitful harvest in the future as the African Union and AfDB work hand-in-hand to support our farming communities.

Excellences, I wish you best as we continue to deliberate on the most optimal path forward for our continent. A peaceful, united and prosperous Africa which effectively plays its role in the political, security and economic world order, constitutes an asset for humanity.

Thank you.