{"id":36051,"date":"2019-06-19T14:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/dr-congo\/flying-sky-high-african-development-bank-annual-meetings-conclude-with-consensus-on-regional-integration\/"},"modified":"2019-06-19T14:00:16","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T12:00:16","slug":"flying-sky-high-african-development-bank-annual-meetings-conclude-with-consensus-on-regional-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/dr-congo\/flying-sky-high-african-development-bank-annual-meetings-conclude-with-consensus-on-regional-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying \u2018sky-high\u2019: African Development Bank Annual Meetings conclude with consensus on regional integration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/4b6cb62cd021d5d.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/4b6cb62cd021d5d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Download logo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The African Development Bank (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.AfDB.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.AfDB.org<\/a>) on Friday concluded its Annual Meetings, amid growing consensus that regional integration is imperative to a new phase in African prosperity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Around 2,000 delegates gathered in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to discuss ways to fast-track regional integration after the milestone African Continental Free Area (AfCFTA) was endorsed earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We have had an excellent exchange with all of our shareholders. They were extremely impressed by the work achieved by the Bank, particularly in terms of regional integration,&rdquo; said African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina at the closing press conference of the Meetings.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Our AAA rating is preserved and protected &hellip; Look at our income. It&rsquo;s sky-high.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The theme for the Malabo Meetings was &ldquo;Regional Integration for Africa&rsquo;s Economic Prosperity&rdquo;. Cesar Mba Abogo, the country&rsquo;s Minister of Finance, said the Annual Meetings had allowed its country to showcase its opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This has been a great moment for us. It fits in with our development plan and our investment needs. This is a country that is open for business and open to everyone. We are extremely happy to showcase what we have to the world,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>During the Meetings, the Board of Governors discussed the Bank&rsquo;s performance, outlook and a proposed General Capital Increase (GCI). Adesina welcomed the &ldquo;solid support&rdquo; from the Bank&rsquo;s shareholders, who gave the go-ahead for further discussions around a GCI. Responding to a question on the Bank&rsquo;s support to fragile nations, Adesina said: &ldquo;Every dollar that the Bank spent in GCI led to $17 of benefit to low-income countries. So the GCI not just for rich countries, it lifts everybody up.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Adesina said the Bank&rsquo;s transition facility continued to assist countries emerging from conflict, while its investments played a strategic role in helping countries that find themselves in the &ldquo;triangle of disaster&rdquo; &ndash; unemployment, poverty and environmental degradation.<\/p>\n<p>The four-day Annual Meetings were attended by ministers, government officials, African Union representatives, development partners and civil society leaders, who gathered to deliberate on the continent&rsquo;s development agenda.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The next Annual Meetings will be held in Abidjan, C&ocirc;te d&#039;Ivoire, in May.<\/p>\n<p> <i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).<\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>Media Contact:<\/strong><br \/> Gershwin Wanneburg<br \/> Communication Officer<br \/> Communication and External Relations Department<br \/> Email: <a href=\"mailto:g.wanneburg@afdb.org\">g.wanneburg@afdb.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/afdb.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/flying-skyhigh-african-development-bank-annual-meetings-conclude-with-consensus-on-regional-integration?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Central Africa <a title=\"Democratic Republic of Congo\" href=\"http:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/central-africa\/dr-congo\/\">Democratic Republic of Congo<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download logo The African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) on Friday concluded its Annual Meetings, amid growing consensus that regional integration is imperative to a new phase in African prosperity. Around 2,000 delegates gathered in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to discuss ways to fast-track regional integration after the milestone African Continental Free Area (AfCFTA) was endorsed earlier this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":188473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[258,256,4696,281,4691,450,279,280,257,254],"class_list":["post-36051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dr-congo","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-central-africa","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-dr-congo","tag-dr-congo-news","tag-drc","tag-drc-news","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}