African Development Bank Group president, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, is leading his institution's delegation to the African Union's Executive Council and Assembly meetings taking place in Addis Ababa this week.

Adesina and his team will use the summit as an opportunity to promote key issues on the African Development Bank Group's agenda. This includes mobilizing financing for Africa's accelerated economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and the all-important topic of nutrition, which is a key component of the African Development Bank's Feed Africa priority. The African Union theme for 2022 is Building resilience in nutrition on the African continent: Accelerate the human capital, social and economic development.

This year's summit is a landmark one, marking 20 years of the African Union. Adesina will make a presentation on Mobilizing Financing for Africa's Accelerated Economic Recovery Development and Integration. In recent months, the development bank chief has championed the case for developed countries redeploying part of their allocation of the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to poorer countries.

The African Development Bank, a prescribed holder of SDRs, is strategically poised to act as a channel for a portion of the SDRs coming to the continent, which it could then lend on to help strengthen the balance sheet of African public development banks, mitigate risks associated with medium- to long-term finance and help close financing gaps. The African Development Bank estimates that African countries need $485 billion in the next three years to emerge from the current crisis.

Members of the Bank's delegation are also taking part in sessions and side events on smart finance, and transport, as well as infrastructure and tourism during the summit, which ends on Sunday.

Contact:

Amba Mpoke-Bigg, Communication and External Relations Department, African Development Bank, email: a.mpoke-bigg@afdb.org