Adesina garnered broad strong support for a robust 16th
replenishment of the African Development Fund, the Bank Group’s concessionary
lending arm that supports Africa’s low-income economies. Replenishment efforts
continue through October, when partners are expected to make their pledges.
During bilateral meetings, United States Assistant Treasury
Secretary Alexia Latortue said the African Development Fund was critical to
Africa’s the development landscape. She assured the Bank President that the US
remains a strong and proud supporter of the Fund, which has strategic focus and
delivers impact. Latortue applauded the leadership of Dr. Adesina in developing
the Bank’s bold African emergency food production plan to avert the looming
food crisis due to the Russian war in Ukraine and assured of the strong
partnership of the US Treasury Department on the plan.
Dr. Adesina received similar strong support for the African
Development Fund replenishment from other partners, including Sweden’s Minister
for International Development Cooperation Matilda Ernkrans, Anne Beathe
Tvinnereim, Norway’s Minister for International Development, Vicky Ford,
Minister for Africa of the United Kingdom, and Paul Ryan, Director of
International Finance and Climate of Ireland. They gave their strong support
for the African Development Fund to be allowed to go to the market to leverage
its equity and raise more financing for low-income and fragile states.
Adesina affirmed to the shareholders that the African
Development Fund’s impact on Africa, through their support, was massive and far
reaching. According to the Swedish Minister Ernkrans “the African Development
Bank is doing an incredible work and we strongly support the Bank. Sweden
supports the African Development Fund to leverage its resources from the market
to put more resources for countries. You are doing an excellent job.”
Meeting with the African Union’s Group of 15 Finance
Ministers, Adesina outlined the continent’s immediate challenges and the
solutions that were being applied to tackle them successfully. Top of Adesina’s
list was a plan for massive food production in the face of a looming global
food crisis caused by the Russia war in Ukraine, and the need for a more
flexible and substantial replenishment of the African Development Fund. The
ministers agreed to a joint communique on financing Africa’s economic
resilience in turbulent times (https://bit.ly/3rS6pkK). They called for a
substantial replenishment of the African Development Fund and for the Fund to
be allowed to use its equity to leverage more resources from international
capital markets to meet the rapidly growing needs of countries in Africa.
Adesina highlighted the Bank’s innovative Technologies for
African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), a program operating across nine
food commodities in more than 30 African countries. He said the Bank will
mitigate the effects of the food crisis through an African Food Crisis Response
and Emergency Facility – a dedicated facility that will provide African
countries with resources needed to raise local food production and procure
fertilizer.
According to Adesina, a fertilizer crisis borne out of the
Russian war in Ukraine could put more than $10 billion of food production at
risk. He said a Bank-initiated meeting of key global development, finance,
public and private sector leaders is scheduled for mid-May to tackle the access
to fertilizers for Africa.
Adesina was received at the White House by Dana Banks,
Special Assistant to US President Joseph Biden and Senior Director for Africa
at the White House. Banks said it is important to mitigate the spill-over of
the Russian war in Ukraine on food security Africa and strongly welcomed the
leadership of the African Development Bank on its emergency food production
plan for Africa.
Adesina also met with Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. French Gates said it is important for
Africa to feed itself and focus on nutrition. French Gates expressed strong
support for the bold African emergency food production plan developed by the
African Development Bank; and she called for a strong replenishment of the
African Development Fund. “I will be your strong advocate for G7 countries to
do more for the African Development Fund and to put in more resources for
Africa”, she said.
A meeting of heads of regional multilateral development
banks was held to discuss, among others, the impact the Russian war in Ukraine
was having on development across the world. Adesina spoke about its direct
impact on food and fertilizer supplies in Africa. He also emphasized the Bank’s
climate change collaboration with the Global Center on Adaptation, as well as
the Bank’s record-breaking 83% investment portfolio in renewable energy.
Adesina and several multilateral development bank heads
agreed there was a need for a common voice on the re-channeling of the
International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights.
The Bank President also spoke about the importance of
indigenous vaccine production in Africa, and progress being made on the
proposed establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.
During an engagement at the Atlantic Council
(https://bit.ly/36J0QgW) earlier in the week, Adesina fielded questions from
the Council’s Africa Center Chair, Ambassador Rama Yade and others, giving a
broad perspective of Africa’s challenges and the steps being taken to address
them by African countries, with the support of the African Development Bank Group.
He called for greater resource mobilization in Africa. In his words “I do not
believe in begging. Africa should develop more using its own resources”.
The Bank Group chief invited his various interlocutors to
the African Development Bank Group Annual Meetings taking place from May 23 to
27 in Accra, Ghana.