African Development Bank Annual Meetings on High 5s Development Priorities

Last Updated on June 28, 2017 by Bharat Saini

African Development Bank (AfDB), in its 52^nd Annual Meetings held at Gandhi nagar near Ahmedabad in Gujarat from 22 to 26 May 2017 called for greater cooperation between the Bank and India to help drive Africa’s transformation. Its agenda to “transform the Bank to transform Africa”, was built on its existing 2013-2022 strategy that outlined five development priorities, the Bank’s High 5s: Light up and power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi presided over the opening session in the presence of three African Heads of State – Presidents Macky Sall of Senegal and Patrice Talon of Benin, as well as Vice-President Daniel Kablan Duncan of Côte d’Ivoire participated in the ceremony alongside India’s Minister of Finance, Arun Jaitley, and the Chief Minister for Gujarat State, Vijay Rupani. Modi said India’s partnership with African countries was free of any conditions and will remain demand-driven and added that Africa was a top priority for his government’s foreign and economic policy and pitched for an Asia-Africa Growth Corridor with the support of Japan.

Over 3,500 top government officials, business leaders, representatives of NGOs, civil society, as well as members of the academic community and the media participated in the Annual Meetings, which were preceded by high-level meetings, symposiums and seminars on the Bank’s High 5 priorities

It is the fourth time that the Annual Meetings of AfDB were held outside Africa. The first such meeting took place in Valencia, Spain in 2001, the second in Shanghai, China in 2007, and the third in Lisbon, Portugal in 2011. The next meeting of AfDB is scheduled to be held in Busan, South Korea in 2018.

• India joined the African Development Fund in 1982 and the African Development Bank in 1983.
• It has contributed to the AfDB’s general capital increases and pledged 29 million dollars for the most recent African Development Fund replenishment.
• India contributed to the Highly Indebted Poor Countries and Multilateral Debt Reduction Initiatives.
• India offered 10 billion dollar for development projects over the next five years during the India-Africa Summit held in 2015 in New Delhi which was attended by all 54 African member countries.
• Terming 2015 as a “watershed”, Modi said India had also offered grant assistance of 600 million dollars to the African countries.
• India and Japan, with other willing partners, would explore joint initiatives in skills,health, infrastructure, manufacturing and connectivity.
• As one plank of this cooperation, India extends lines of credit through India’s Exim Bank. 152 lines of credit have been extended to 44 countries for a total amount of nearly 8 billion dollars.
• India’s support through lines of credit have helped finance the projects in African countries and contributed to capacity building, IT education, and higher education.

In line with the central theme, “Transforming Agriculture for Wealth Creation in Africa,” many of the high-level meetings explored how India and Africa can work together order to achieve their shared goal of rural and agricultural transformation, which would go a long way in reducing rural poverty and improving the quality of lives of rural people.

Given the perfect alignment between Bank’s development priorities and India’s growth experience and engagement with Africa, there is tremendous potential for collaboration. To reinforce shared commitment and further strengthen cooperation framework with Africa, a series of regional sessions also featured prominently in the knowledge events of the meetings on:

• India–West Africa Economic Cooperation
• India–Central & South Africa Forum on Connectivity
• India–East Africa Business Forum; and India–North Africa Trade Forum
• India-Africa Dialogue in partnership with Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) to   broadly sensitize Indian industry and fraternity about the Bank’s High 5s Agenda – especially to help in building a roadmap of how can Indian industry contribute to ‘Industrialize Africa’ and move the continent up in the Global Value Chains (GVCs).
• An exhibition in partnership with FICCI with the objective to showcase the capabilities of Indian companies in terms of technology, innovation, and start-ups, which could be relevant for African countries. The theme of the exhibition centered on priority areas of the Bank, the “High 5s”: Energy, Healthcare and Pharma, Agriculture, Industrialization, e-Governance.
• A special session on India-Japan co-operation for the development of Africa was held under the aegis of Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC), in cooperation with their partner organizations in India on the promotion of African business through private-public partnerships between Japan and India in support of African businesses.
• A ministerial roundtable discussion dwelt on developing partnerships between Africa and Asia trade and capital flows between the two continents. Entrepreneurship, private sector development in Africa, Asian lessons on human capital and technology in development as well as regional cooperation and trans-boundary challenges also came up for discussion.
• The Bank signed series of project funding agreements and memorandums of understanding with the Governments of Gujarat State, South Sudan and a number of other countries.