The African Development Bank Group and the World Bank have agreed to deepen their research collaboration on Africa's most pressing economic challenges, including domestic resource mobilisation and debt sustainability to job creation, the demographic dividend, and the energy transition.
The two institutions announced the move after a high-level meeting at the African Development Bank's Abidjan headquarters on Friday 5 June, led by Professor Kevin Chika Urama, the Bank's Chief Economist and Vice President for Economic Governance and Knowledge Management, and Dr Seynabou Sakho, World Bank Regional Practice Director for Prosperity in West and Central Africa.
The World Bank and the African Development Bank will hold regular technical meetings, co-develop annual work programmes, run joint country missions, and coordinate operations on the ground to align their research agendas year on year.
The close coordination will reduce duplication on shared priorities covering economic governance; debt and tax productivity; fiscal resilience and financial flows; public service delivery and SME access to finance and technology; youth employment and the demographic dividend; climate change and energy policy; and Africa's response to a more fragmented global order.
The World Bank team, led by Dr. Seynabou, presented a three-pillar strategy focusing on crisis response and resilience, domestic resource management, and large-scale job creation. Professor Urama briefed the World Bank delegation on the top-line findings from the African Development Bank Group's recently released Africa Macroeconomic Performance and Outlook and African Economic Outlook reports. He also presented policy papers on the impact of the Middle East conflict on African economies, the proposed African Financing Stability Mechanism, and on measuring natural capital as part of Africa's green wealth. He said all the Bank's recent knowledge products had been developed in consultation with African governments and partners including the African Union Commission, UNECA, the UNDP, AUDA-NEPAD, the ILO, the IMF and the World Bank itself.
Professor Urama also invited the World Bank team to attend the African Economic Conference, which the African Development Bank Group will cohost with UNDP in Abidjan from 9 to 11 July 2026. The AEC will run in tandem with the annual meeting of the Global Network of Chief Economists of International Development Agencies and Finance Institutions, held in partnership with the OECD. It will also feature the launch of the new African Chief Economists Network (ACE Network), an African Development Bank initiative to strengthen Africa's knowledge sovereignty and promote evidence-based economic decision-making across the continent.
