The election of a new President is the main point of attraction of the next Assemblies, which will take place virtually on 26 and 27 August 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This is a first for the African Development Bank: its Annual Meetings, a major event of the institution, will take place in virtual mode, in compliance with the physical distancing instructions related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Governors' Dialogue and the election of a President will be the priorities of the agenda of these next Assemblies, which will take place on 26 and 27 August 2020?

The year 2020, which marks the 55th annual session of the Bank's Board of Governors and the 46th annual session of the African Development Fund – the Bank's concessional window – is all the more important as it is a year of election of the Bank's President. The president in eercice, Akinwumi Adesina, is the only candidate running for a new five-year term.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic spread to the continent in early March, Africa has recorded more than one million confirmed cases of infection with the virus. The pandemic has hit the region's economies hard after commodity pri falls, and government-imposed lockdown measures have led to the closure of borders in many countries on the continent.

For several months now, the Bank has been supporting member countries in the region to protect their economies, health systems and people's livelihoods from the public health and economic impacts of Covid-19.

Last April, the Bank set up a $10 billion Covid-19 Rapid Response Mechanism to provide significant support to sovereign and non-sovereign operations in Africa. As of August 20, $2.29 billion in funds from this facility had been approved for the Bank's member countries.

An additional $1.186 billion has been disbursed to African Development Fund member countries, with approvals ongoing.

Last March, the African Development Bank also raised a record three billion dollars with the introduction of its "Fighting Covid-19" social bond on the London Stock Exchange.

Despite this difficult period of lockdown, the Bank has managed to achieve some major milestones, and the international rating agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor's have confirmed the institution's AAA rating with a stable outlook, the AfDB said.

At the 2020 Annual Meetings, Governors are expected to receive information on the evolution of the Bank's various activities since the 2019 edition held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. This information will cover in particular the seventh general capital increase of the Bank, which was approved by the Board of Governors on 31 October 2019 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and which has led to a historic increase in the Bank's capital, from $115 billion to $208 billion.

In December 2019, donors to the African Development Fund pledged $7.6 billion as part of the Bank's fifteenth capital replenishment to help Africa's poorest countries.

On August 27, 2020, Governors will vote for the election of the Bank's eighth President. Akinwumi Adesina, the first Nigerian citizen to hold this office, was elected on 28 May 2015 for a term of five years by the Bank's Board of Governors during the Annual Meetings held that year in Abidjan, in Côte d'Ivoire.

The Bank's Governors are usually Ministers of Finance and Economy or Central Bank Governors of the 54 member countries of the African region and the 27 member countries of other regions of the world.

Source: Bad press release