By JUDITH NAMUTOWE –
THE Africa Development Bank (AfDB) will strengthen alliances at the 2015 World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings.
The annual meetings will this year be held from October 9 to 11 in Lima, Peru.
This is contained in a statement posted on the AfDB website.
The World Bank and IMF annual and Spring meetings bring together each year central bankers, ministers of finance, heads of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and private sector stakeholders to discuss current issues that are of relevance to the world economy, financial stability, and economic development.
The statement said the annual meetings will be an opportunity for AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina and other senior staff to reaffirm the Bank’s support for collaborating with other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) on the “Billions to Trillions” agenda, and to engage with the WB/IMF Governors, ministers of finance, private sector and other partners.
The heads of MDBs will also be discussing one of the action items made during the Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015 to examine their role, scale and functioning to enable them adapt to and be fully responsive to the sustainable development agenda.
The World Bank-IMF annual meetings will include a day of plenary sessions with WB/IMF Governors and a programme of seminars.
“The meetings provide opportunities for consultations between the officials from the member countries, MDB heads and other relevant stakeholders.
AfDB’s over-arching goal for its participation in the World Bank IMF annual meetings is to strengthen the alliances within the areas of the new corporate priorities, and to position the bank as a key player by leveraging resources to support the African countries in implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” the statement said.
It stated that while there was clear recognition of the bank’s advantages and its legitimacy within Africa, the changes in the global environment require the bank to evolve and adapt to remain relevant and support Africa’s transformation.
The AfDB delegation will take an active role in following up on the discussions that took place during the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York and seek to broaden the dialogue on new corporate priorities.
It said AfDB stands ready to scale-up the partnership with its  peers, governments, private sector and other partners, and put its finance and expertise at work to support the implementation of the new development agenda.
AfDB will also use this opportunity to pave the way for a consensus as a lead up to the COP21 Summit taking place from November 30 to December 11, 2015 in Paris.