Heads of world’s development banks focus on sustainable recovery for Africa, and call for more cooperation to scale up help for most vulnerable

Heads of world’s development banks focus on sustainable recovery for Africa, and call for more cooperation to scale up help for most vulnerable

Heads of public development banks on Wednesday underlined the critical need to build resilience for fragile countries and to boost African countries’ capacity to tackle global emissions in a sustainable manner. Stressing the need to forge even stronger cooperation, they said the third Finance in Common Summit (www.FinanceInCommon.org), held for the first time in Africa, would be proof of commitment to reducing poverty and “future proofing” the planet.

The summit, which opened on Wednesday in Abidjan, the commercial capital of Cote d’Ivoire, comes amid overlapping global crises: Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and the Russia-Ukraine war. These crises are severely affecting many parts of the world, particularly Africa.

The summit is being held with less than a month to the UN climate conference, COP27, to be held in the Egyptian town of Sharm el Sheikh.

The African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank are co-organizing the summit under the theme Green and Just Transition for a Sustainable Recovery. The summit is highlighting the role of public development banks in supporting the transformation of economies and financial systems towards sustainability.

In his opening remarks, Prime Minister Patrick Achi of Côte d’Ivoire said he had “huge expectations” for Africa and his country which is the world’s