The AfDB President Donald Kaberuka on Friday, April 9, 2010 attended the Heads of Multilateral Development Banks Meeting in Luxembourg. The Chief Executive Officers of the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank also attended the high-level meeting.
The agenda of the meeting included among others: the review of prevailing world macroeconomic outlook, the progress on respective negotiations for MDBs' capital increases including the replenishment of their soft windows, various post crisis challenges including notably climate change, post Copenhagen (Cop15) and the MDBs' future evolution of activities in the specific areas. The recent appointment of AfDB President Donald Kaberuka to the High Level Advisory Group on climate change made this meeting more significant for the Bank, as it will help inform his active participation in this Panel.
The meeting further dealt with compliance issues relating to anti-money laundering, off-shore financial centres, anti fraud, corruption as well tax and development issues. The format of the presentations and discussions enabled the MDBs to learn from each other's current experiences, challenges and best practices. In this regard, the MDBs were expected to sign a Cross-Debarment Agreement for mutual enforcement of debarment decisions.
On the subject of climate change, after a lead IMF presentation, each MDB starting with the World Bank provided its perspective on the main challenges in the post-crisis framework, while focusing on climate change post-Copenhagen, as well as other key issues relevant for joint MDB activity. The establishment and administration of a Green Fund Mechanism featured prominently in the discussions of the Chief Executives. They also briefly reviewed their respective responsibilities in the G20 mutual assessment process with special reference to their respective regions.
The AfDB President was accompanied by Messrs. Graham Stegmann, Special Adviser to the President, Kalidou Gadio, General Counsel.
Contacts
Felix Njoku