African Development Bank (AfDB) Group President, Donald Kaberuka, will participate in the G20 Leaders Meeting in Toronto, 26/27 June 2010. At the recent Annual Meeting in Abidjan, in May 2010, Mr. Kaberuka was re-elected as President of the AfDB for a second five year term. As with previous G-20 Summits, President Kaberuka will attend as a member of the African Union delegation.
The Toronto Summit will focus on the key issues facing the global economy. In the short run, the priority is to sustain the recovery. At their last Summit in Pittsburgh the G-20 Leaders launched a Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth to achieve a durable recovery. They committed all countries to work together to meet shared objectives, to adopt macroeconomic policies that promote strong and balanced growth, fiscal sustainability, and structural reforms.
Leaders will consider a report which will assess progress, how policies fit together, and whether these are collectively consistent with stronger, more sustainable and balanced growth over the medium term. To date recovery has been uneven, and there are signs that the crisis may have a long-lasting impact on the pace of growth and poverty reduction in Africa and other developing countries. Fiscal consolidation and tighter financial sector regulation in the G-20 countries will have implications also for financial flows to developing countries, and likely limit their access to financing.
Africa's rebound from the crisis was faster and more robust than initially expected, although Africa remains vulnerable to external shocks. However building on a decade of reform and progress, and with appropriate support, Africa has the potential to be one of the faster growing regions in the world. African participation in the dialogue and the work of the G-20 is therefore critical.
The G-20 is expected to establish a Working Group on Development to look at ways to narrow the development gap and to reduce poverty, submitting a report to the next G-20 Summit in Seoul in November. President Kaberuka and African leaders have consistently argued for Africa to have greater representation in the G-20; at present only South Africa is a member. The Committee of 10 (African Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors) established by the AfDB, together with the AU Commission and Economic Commission for Africa, will continue to monitor the impact of the crisis, recovery and the impact on Africa, and to provide advice to African Leaders.
G-20 Leaders committed to ensuring that the Multilateral Development Banks have the resources they need, and that these are used effectively to achieve development outcomes. Following the exceptional response by the AfDB to the financial and economic crisis, the Board of Governors approved at the Annual Meeting last May 2010 a General Capital Increase for the AfDB which will triple the AfDB's resources to some USD 100 billion. However negotiations continue on the 12th replenishment of the African Development Fund which provides concessional resources to low income African countries. The previous replenishment provided USD 8.9 billion for the period 2008-10 and the AfDB has put forward a strong case for an increase for the 2011-13 period.
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Antoinette Batumubwira
