The 52nd Annual Meetings of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the 43rd Meetings of the Board of Governors of the African Development Fund (ADF) opened in Ahmedabad, India, on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 with calls for greater cooperation between the Bank and India to help drive Africa\’s transformation.
Addressing over 3,000 participants at the Mahatma Mandir Conference and Exhibition Center, the President of the African Development Bank Group, Akinwumi Adesina, highlighted the Bank\’s efforts in the implementation of its Ten Year Strategy encapsulated in the High 5 priorities. These are, Light up and power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialise Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa.
With the ever-increasing need to meet the demands of the High 5s, Bank Group operations went up by over 17% to 305 in 2016. In the same vein, cumulative investments, rose by 19% to US$ 10.45 billion over the figure for 2015.
In real terms, over 22 million people benefitted from Bank finance services ranging from access to water and sanitation to healthcare, electricity, agriculture, and transport, among others; while 630,000 people mainly youth and women benefitted from its \”agripreneurs\” project aimed at attracting young graduates to agriculture as business.
The central theme of the Annual Meetings, \”Transforming Agriculture for Wealth creation in Africa,\” underscores the importance of agriculture for Africa\’s transformation and the Bank is banking on the continent\’s bulging youth population engaging in agriculture as a business for real transformation to take place.
