The General Assemblies of the African Development Bank begin on August 26. They take place in a very specific context, due to the health crisis and the tremors that have shaken the institution in recent months.
For the first time, the Annual General Meetings of the AfDB (African Development Bank) will take place in virtual mode, in compliance with the physical distancing instructions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to a bulletin issued by the institution, “the Dialogue of Governors and the election of a President will be the priorities of the agenda” of these forthcoming Assemblies. Which will take place on August 26 and 27, 2020.
The year 2020 marks the 55th annual session of the Board of Governors of the Bank and the 46th annual session of the African Development Fund, the concessional window of the Bank. The meeting is all the more important as it will be marked by the election of the President of the Bank.
The current president, Akinwumi Adesina, is the only candidate running for a new five-year term. Will he have been shaken by the accusations of the “whistleblowers” who accused him of favoritism? We know that the AfDB’s ethics committee found all of these accusations unfounded or formulated without proof.
And that an independent committee, desired by several shareholders including the United States, confirmed this judgment. There is therefore no apparent obstacle to a quiet re-election for Akinwumi Adesina.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the continent in early March, Africa has recorded more than one million confirmed cases of infection with the virus. The pandemic has hit the region’s economies hard after commodity prices plummeted and government-imposed containment measures closed the borders of many countries.
A rapid response to Covid-19!
For several months now, “the AfDB has been providing support to member countries in the region in order to protect their economies, their health systems and the livelihoods of their populations,” says the institution. Which, it is true, governed fairly early in the face of the threat.
In April 2020, the Bank established a Covid-19 Rapid Response Mechanism, with a maximum amount of $10 billion, to provide flexible support to sovereign and non-sovereign operations in Africa. As of August 20, 2.29 billion of this mechanism had been approved for member countries of the bank.
An additional $1,186 billion has been disbursed to African Development Fund member countries, and approvals are underway.
Management praised!
In March 2020, the AfDB had already mobilized a record amount of $3 billion during the introduction of its “Fight Covid-19” social bond on the London Stock Exchange.
Despite this difficult period of confinement, the Bank has managed to take some major key steps. International rating agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor’s have confirmed the institution’s AAA rating with a “stable” outlook.
At the 2020 Annual Meetings, governors are expected to receive updates on the development of various AfDB activities since last year. The Assemblies were held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. This information will relate in particular to the seventh general increase in the capital of the ADB, which the Board of Governors approved on October 31, 2019. The operation made it possible to increase the Bank’s capital by a historic amount, which went from $115 to $208 billion.
In December 2019, donors to the African Development Fund pledged $7.6 billion as part of the AfDB’s Fifteenth Replenishment, to help the most backward countries in Africa.
On August 27, 2020, governors will vote for the election of the eighth President of the Bank. Akinwumi Adesina, the first Nigerian citizen to hold this office, was elected on May 28, 2015 for a five-year term.
The governors of the Bank are, for the most part, Ministers of Finance and Economy or Central Bank Governors of the 54 member countries of the Africa region and the 27 member countries from other regions of the world.
