This year's theme for the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) in Arusha, Tanzania, from 28 May to 1 June is 'Africa and the Emerging Global Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities.'
The wide-ranging them will give the AfDB's staff and guests to debate Africa's place in a changing world.
The changes that have affected the world include the global financial and economic crisis and a stronger emphasis on green and economic inclusive growth.
Africa, too, is undergoing change, particularly as its economies continue to grow at a faster pace than other parts of the world, while its political situation also changes for the better, with more democracy and good governance. The continent also faces the challenge of providing a better future for its youth, which accounts for some 37 percent of the population.
Because of the broadness of the Annual Meetings theme, the AfDB will address the different issues in four High Level Seminars and a High Level Debate, attended by some of the most distinguished and finest thinkers on the African economy, African society and the African political landscape.
The subjects of the four High Level Seminars are:
Opportunities and Threats of the Global Economic Crisis
Emerging Issues in African Economics
Greening the Economy
Voice and Accountability
The High Level Debate will be on:
Innovative Financing of Infrastructure and Regional Integration post the Economic Crisis
These topics will address the opportunities presented by the changing landscape catapulting African economies as key players in the global market.
Together, they look at the challenges that paved the road and the many opportunities toward the realisation of strong, inclusive and sustainable economic growth for Africa.
Africa's overall economic growth rate for 2012 is projected at six percent. Over the past ten years, six of the world's fastest-growing economies were African. The Economist magazine has made a five-year projection that the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia may grow by an average 7.2 percent annually.
The magazine goes on to say: 'over this period, the average African economy will outpace its counterpart in Asia.'
Contacts
David Short
