World Bank Presidential candidate Ajay Banga vows to partner with African Development Bank for transformative outcomes | African Development Bank

Ajay Banga, the United States-nominated President of the World Bank Group, began his global tour on Monday, with his first stop in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where he met African Development Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, senior management and board of directors met .

Banga spoke of the need for the World Bank Group to develop a strong partnership with the African Development Bank Group that would help deliver transformative results.

The candidate for the top position at the World Bank pointed to three key issues that affect many parts of the world and which he says are of great concern to him. These include inequality, tension between humans and nature, and a tendency to apply short-term solutions to long-term problems that yield only poor results. He said the challenges facing the world have been complicated by the Covid 19 pandemic, environmental degradation and the impact of the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The former CEO of Mastercard highlighted the role of technology in helping address challenges the world faces. He also spoke about the role of the private sector in mobilizing much-needed capital resources for significant economic development. This applies not only to private sector capital, but also to private sector ingenuity and innovation, which Banga believes are necessary to address the many challenges facing the world.

Banga’s call for a revived partnership resonated very well with Dr. Adesina. Adesina stressed the need for a new way of working between the World Bank and the African Development Bank. “It’s more than financial. It is more about how we work to optimize resources by engaging governments, the private sector and other stakeholders in driving meaningful change.”

Adesina said climate change remains the most serious existential threat to humanity. “It decimates lives, displaces people, creates refugees and increases poverty.”

“It’s what I call the disaster triangle. You have rising poverty, rising youth unemployment and environmental degradation,” Adesina said, warning, “this is a breeding ground for terrorism.”

The head of the African Development Bank called for a global security council for environment and biodiversity – which he says are not getting the attention they deserve compared to other global challenges such as war.

Adesina called for a new way of measuring the wealth of nations rather than basing it on gross domestic product. “This does not take into account important factors such as a country’s contribution to carbon emissions and the impact on biodiversity.”

“There is a global need for greater responsibility to address the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation and to protect biodiversity,” said the head of the African Development Bank.

He underlined the need for more economic opportunities, especially in rural areas where infrastructure investment is critical. He told the assembly that the recently held Dakar 2 Food Summit, attended by thirty-four heads of state and government who have committed to food and agriculture supply pacts, has identified nearly $52 billion in planned support for agriculture and agriculture to date. food security of developing partners for the next three years.

Adesina called for a similar approach to solving the problem of lack of energy in Africa “where more than 600 million people have no access to energy. This can be solved through initiatives such as the African Development Bank-led Desert to Power initiative, which aims to provide green power to more than 200 million people in eleven countries” by leveraging solar capacity.

On February 23, President Joe Biden announced Ajay Banga as the United States’ nominee for president of the World Bank Group. The institution’s current president, David Malpass, recently announced his intention to step down by the end of June 2023.

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