2020 Peace Forum – the Afrikaans Development Bank to focus fully on vulnerability and gender issues "Common finances" SummitAfrikaans Development BankThe African Development Bank actively participates in sessions on fragility, gender and climate change during the "Common finances" summit, which will take place on 11 and 12 November as part of the 2020 Peace Forum. The Forum’s aim is to mobilize a joint response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more “

The African Development Bank is actively participating in sessions on fragility, gender and climate change during the “Finance in Common” summit, which will take place on 11 and 12 November as part of the 2020 Peace Forum. The Forum’s aim is to mobilize a joint response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, together with Rémy Rioux, Head of the French Development Agency, will chair the plenary session. The session will bring together nearly 450 public development banks. Together, Adesina and Rioux will hold a dialogue on dialogue between public development banks and other development role players, including the private sector, NGOs and civil society. They will emphasize the importance of the Sustainable Development Objectives and the central role of multilateral public development banks in utilizing the necessary resources to achieve them.

This first global summit of public development banks should make it possible to form a new coalition of financial institutions dedicated to development to meet the new global challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis, and diverting funding to inclusive growth, while taking into account the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Khaled Sherif, Vice President of the African Development Bank for Regional Development and Integration, will speak in a session entitled “Human security in fragile contexts: scaling up humanitarian and resilient investment”. Katherine Garrett-Cox (GIB Asset Management), Peter Maurer (ICRC) and Shinichi Kitaoka (JICA) will join him. The panel will call for coordinated action by humanitarian, development and private sector actors to explore new approaches to funding in fragile contexts. The discussion will focus on strengthening resilience in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic and building more inclusive societies.

Through its “High 5” operating priorities, the African Development Bank has strengthened its support for fragile states, with financial commitments increasing by 51 percent between 2014 and 2019, compared to the period 2008 to 2013, according to the report published in October 2020 . by the Bank’s Independent Division Development Division (BDEV). Some 345 operations worth $ 6.45 billion have been approved for these countries, where the primary development challenge remains multifaceted.

Last year, the Bank launched the “Desert to Power” initiative, a program for energy integration in the Sahel region, which covers 11 countries and 250 million people. The goal is to install 1.1 gigawatts of solar power by 2030 and generate economic opportunities for local residents, thus developing overall socio-economic resilience.

In a second session entitled “Development Banks as Agents of Change towards Gender Equality”, Vanessa Moungar, Director of Gender, Women and Civil Society at the Bank, will speak with Anne-Marie Levesque (FinDev Canada), Daniel Seymour (UN Women ), Meral Murathan (Industrial Development Bank of Turkey) and Seblewongel Negussie (Green Climate Fund).

The panel will address the role and impact of development banks in achieving gender equality, as described in Objective 5 for Sustainable Development, and to promote inclusive and sustainable funding for gender sensitive policies. To illustrate this commitment, the International Development Finance Club (IDFC) will present a field study on gender equality. This session will culminate in reading and signing a gender-oriented interest. This will complement the main statement of the summit on the objectives of the new coalition of public development banks.

Empowerment of women is one of the priorities of the African Development Bank. As farmers, employees and entrepreneurs, African women are the driving force behind the economic development of the continent. The Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative, launched in 2016, aims to promote women’s access to finance to reduce the barriers they face in creating economic activity. The current deficit in Africa is estimated at $ 42 billion.

Because legal, social and economic disparities between men and women in Africa are still important, in 2015 the Bank introduced the Gender Equality Index to measure and correct these disparities.

In another recent initiative, the Bank and several partners launched the WECA network Women in Ethics and Compliance (Africa in Ethics and Compliance) in October 2020. This initiative supports managers involved in the fight against corruption and non-compliance with businesses and businesses. This is a reaffirmation of the commitment of the African Development Bank to ensure that sustainable development is based on reducing gender inequalities, focusing on key areas such as ethics and compliance, ‘said Vanessa Moungar.

Kevin Kariuki, Bank Vice President for Energy, Climate and Green Growth, will participate in a high-level panel on speeding up investments for adaptation and resilience to climate change. The African Development Bank has developed innovative financing instruments to mobilize $ 25 billion for climate resistance by 2025. Kevin Kariuki will reiterate the importance of increased coordination between all actors, including public development banks, to lay the collective foundation for a stronger and more sustainable reconstruction of the era after COVID-19.

Contact:

Media contacts: Francois Lacombe, Mansour Diouf, Department of Communications and External Relations, African Development Bank, e-mail: a.diouf@afdb.org

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