{"id":171882,"date":"2020-11-12T20:32:48","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T18:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/afdb.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/remarks-by-dr-akinwumi-a-adesina-president-african-development-bank-group-at-the-finance-in-common-summit-november-12-2020?lang=en"},"modified":"2020-11-12T20:32:48","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T18:32:48","slug":"remarks-by-dr-akinwumi-a-adesina-president-african-development-bank-group-at-the-finance-in-common-summit-november-12-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/remarks-by-dr-akinwumi-a-adesina-president-african-development-bank-group-at-the-finance-in-common-summit-november-12-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Remarks by Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President, African Development Bank Group, at the Finance in Common Summit, November 12, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/4b6cb62cd021d5d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/4b6cb62cd021d5d\" alt=\"African Development Bank Group (AfDB)\" style=\"max-width:500px;\"\/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/4b6cb62cd021d5d\">Download logo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I would like to thank President Emmanuel Macron and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for hosting us for the Paris Peace Forum. I&rsquo;d also like to thank my dear friend Remy Rioux for the vision and leadership in putting together the Finance in Common Summit, with Public Development Banks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Peace is the collateral for sustainable development. We gather today for peace &mdash; and for development.<\/p>\n<p>But we gather at a time of great challenges from the global Coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Our gathering on Finance in Common shows again our collective resolve to keep our focus on sustainable development &mdash; even in the face of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing can dampen our collective resolve to provide better opportunities for all, to create hope for millions of youth, to end extreme poverty and to provide a better, safer and healthier future for all.<\/p>\n<p>Meeting the SDGs will be much tougher now with the pandemic. Globally, the financing gap to achieve the SDGs by 2030 is estimated at&nbsp;$2.5 trillion&nbsp;per year.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s been worsened with the pandemic. We NOW need all hands joined together.<\/p>\n<p>The Public Development Banks, with lending volumes of&nbsp;$2.3 trillion&nbsp;annually can meet&nbsp;92%&nbsp;of all the financing gap for the SDGs.<\/p>\n<p>And just imagine: if those resources are well leveraged, with the private sector, and aligned with the climate agenda, we can meet and&nbsp;exceed&nbsp;the SDGs and the climate financing agendas.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To mobilize financing needs for the SDGs, we need 3 things:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Financing&nbsp;coalition,&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Financing&nbsp;complementarity&nbsp;and<\/li>\n<li>Financing&nbsp;consolidation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Public Development Banks offer such a powerful platform for this,&nbsp;if they focus and align their financing to the SDGs and climate change.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s why we are here today. Let&rsquo;s be bold. Let&rsquo;s be creative. Let&rsquo;s build this new ecosystem for transformative change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PART II: Role of the African Development Bank<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The African Development Bank is fully committed to supporting Africa to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the climate change agenda agreed at COP21 in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>We&rsquo;ve been&nbsp;very responsive&nbsp;in tackling the current pandemic. The Bank launched a $10 billion facility to support Africa to contain the Coronavirus. We also launched a $3 billion fight COVID-19 social bond on the global capital market &mdash; the largest ever social bond in world history.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Yet, as we are tackling the pandemic, and saving lives, we are committed to supporting economic recovery, to rebuild Africa&rsquo;s economies &mdash; stronger, bolder, better and with greater resilience.<\/p>\n<p>We must all continue to focus on closing Africa&rsquo;s massive annual infrastructure financing gap estimated at $&nbsp;68-108 billion.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To advance this, Public development banks should invest in private sector for infrastructure. PPPs should become the norm for infrastructure financing, to reduce infrastructure-related debts.<\/p>\n<p>We must leverage more foreign direct investment to Africa. The&nbsp;Africa Investment Forum&nbsp;is Africa&rsquo;s structured investment market place and leveraging platform. In two years of its existence, the Africa Investment Forum attracted&nbsp;$78.1 billion&nbsp;of investment interests to Africa.&nbsp;Public Development Banks should all join hands with the African Development Bank and partners to create an massive investment rebound to Africa.&nbsp;The next Africa Investment Forum will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November 2021.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We must leave no one behind. For that we must&nbsp;prioritize financing for fragile states.<\/p>\n<p>We must collectively address the huge financing gap for women. Development promise without women is simply an empty promise.&nbsp;Financing gap for women in Africa is estimated at&nbsp;$42 billion. The African Development Bank&rsquo;s AFAWA program is working to unlock&nbsp;$5 billion&nbsp;in financing for women in the next five years. I&rsquo;d like to applaud President Macron for helping to launch and mobilize substantial financing for AFAWA during the G7 Summit in France. As of June 2020, $138 million were approved for women through 10 financial institutions in seven countries.&nbsp;Public development banks are welcome to join this largest ever effort in Africa to tilt financing towards women in Africa.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The African Development Bank will be working with governments to launch Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks to create a new (scalable, systemic and sustainable) financial ecosystem for unlocking entrepreneurship and growing the businesses of the youth. The goal is to spur youth-led innovation and business ventures, create quality and decent jobs, and turn Africa&rsquo;s youth demographic advantage into assets for Africa. I would like to ask Public Development Banks to join us in this new bold effort for Africa, including innovations to develop and expand local capital markets.<\/p>\n<p>Finally,&nbsp;we must accelerate renewable energy all across Africa.&nbsp;The African Development Bank will no longer finance coal projects. The Bank has embarked on the&nbsp;Desert to Power&nbsp;initiative to build the world&rsquo;s largest solar zone in the Sahel region, and provide electricity for 280 million people. To achieve the $20 billion investment&nbsp;to light up the Sahel requires financing coalition, complementarity and consolidation. I&rsquo;d like to call on all public development banks, the civil society and philanthropic organizations to join the Bank in this transformative effort to power Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Together, let&rsquo;s do &ldquo;Finance in Common&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Let&rsquo;s have financing coalition,&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Financing complementarity&nbsp;and&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Financing consolidation.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I look forward to working with you all.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you very much.<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).<\/i><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/\">Source: Africa Newsroom &#8211; APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download logo I would like to thank President Emmanuel Macron and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for hosting us for the Paris Peace Forum. I&rsquo;d also like to thank my dear friend Remy Rioux for the vision and leadership in putting together the Finance in Common Summit, with Public Development Banks. Peace is the collateral [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":171883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-171882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/remarks-by-dr-akinwumi-a-adesina-president-african-development-bank-group-at-the-finance-in-common-summit-november-12-2020.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}