The African Union held its first Political Conference in Tangier, Morocco, with delegates calling for accelerated partnerships between the various actors to respond more efficiently to Africa's challenges.
In her opening speech, delivered on behalf of the President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the Bank's Vice President for Finance and Director of Financial Services, Hassatou Diop N'Sele, commended His Majesty King Mohammed VI and the Moroccan government for organizing the Conference.
She said the meeting provided a unique opportunity to better sequence and interweave security and development interventions in Africa.
"If ever there was a time to reaffirm the strategic nature of the link between security and development, it is now," N'Sele stressed. She noted that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Africa's GDP in 2020 recorded its largest decline in twenty years. She added: "We have lost $165 billion and over 30 million jobs. More than 26 million people have fallen into extreme poverty and more than 250 million have been affected by conflict."
"And now, as we begin a painful recovery, we face a food crisis: grain and energy prices have skyrocketed, while the lack of fertilizer threatens the balance of our food systems," She noted.
To avert a looming food crisis, worsened by the overlapping impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the African Development Bank Group has launched a $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility to bolster food security in its member countries.
The facility is providing 20 million African smallholder farmers with access to fertilizer and seeds to help produce an additional 38 million tonnes of food, worth about $12 billion over the next two years.
N'Sele participated in panel on the nexus of "Peace, Security and Development", in relation to the orientations of the African Union's Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
She restated the Bank's commitment to work with the African Union, regional economic communities, development partners, governments, and the private sector to mobilize resources to address the structural causes of conflict, reduce volatility and consolidate development outcomes for a more secure and resilient continent.
The African Development Fund, the Bank Group's concessional window, focuses on fragility, economic resilience, conflict prevention, and helping post-conflict countries. The Bank Group is working on an innovative security-indexed investment bond platform to mobilize public and private resources for addressing the root causes of insecurity, build institutional capacity and community resilience, and rehabilitate infrastructure that would have been affected by insecurity.
Jean-Guy Afrika, Acting Director of the Regional Integration Coordination Office at the Bank, urged African Union member states and conference partners to collaborate in programming, strategy and implementation of their projects.
"If we want to accelerate Africa's development, build a better business environment and achieve free movement of goods, people, services and capital, it is essential that we have a common vision to strengthen the institutional capacity of regional economic communities and regulate and harmonize policy frameworks between countries," Jean-Guy Afrika said during a panel on the role of regional integration in peace and prosperity in Africa.
Over the past six years, the African Development Bank Group has invested more than $44 billion in infrastructure across the continent, including water and sanitation, energy, transport and digital infrastructure.
Afrika said Morocco remains a privileged partner of the Bank Group and a model in deploying funds to accelerate development and regional integration.
African Union Policy Conference Highlights video
Contact:
Fahd Belbachir, Senior External Relations and Communications Officer I African Development Bank I f.belbachir@afdb.org
