By Ngor Deng Matem
Finance leaders from across Africa are gathering in Nairobi, Kenya for the African Development Bank Group’s 2024 Annual Meetings.
The 5-day conference, running from May 27 to 31, 2024, marks the 59th Annual Assembly of the African Development Bank and the 50th meeting of the African Development Fund.
The meetings are being attended by up to 3,000 delegates, including African heads of state, Ministers, central bank governors, members of the development community, the private sector, and other stakeholders.
They are convening at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi to discuss the theme “Africa’s Transformation, the African Development Bank Group, and the Reform of the Global Financial Architecture”.
Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa by 2030 will require around $1.3 trillion in yearly financing.
This underscores the urgent need to reform the global financial architecture and bridge the growing financing gap, especially given Africa’s rapid population growth.
The Annual Meetings, which also mark the African Development Bank’s 60th anniversary, aim to propose concrete steps to mobilize resources for Africa’s structural transformation and debate the reform of the international financial system to better support the continent’s development needs.
High-level discussions will focus on reforming the global financial architecture, the Bank’s vision at 60, and strategies for financing Africa’s transformation amidst global financial changes, with a particular emphasis on leveraging natural capital for economic productivity.
The African Development Bank Group will also unveil its latest African Economic Outlook, a flagship annual report providing policymakers with comprehensive analysis and forecasts of African countries’ economic performance.
Governor of the Bank of South Sudan, Dr. James Alic, is representing the finance ministry and central bank in multiple discussions at the meetings.
The theme of the 2024 Annual Meetings, “Africa’s Transformation, the African Development Bank Group, and the Reform of the Global Financial Architecture,” is designed to provide a framework for the Bank Group’s Governors to share their experiences in transforming their respective economies, the main obstacles they have encountered, and the key reforms they have undertaken to overcome them or minimize their adverse effects.
It also offers an opportunity for the Governors to outline their positioning within the ongoing proposed reforms of the international financial architecture and discuss how the current global financial system has constrained the financing of their structural transformation ambitions.
The knowledge-sharing events will serve as a platform for exchanging views on strategies, policies, and interventions, as well as promoting peer-to-peer learning and solution-oriented dialogue to build the Africa we want.