African Development Bank(AfDB): Socio-Economic Growth, & Regional Integration in Africa

African Development Bank(AfDB): Socio-Economic Growth, & Regional Integration in Africa #

African Development Bank is a multilateral development finance institution.
It provides finance to African governments and private companies investing in the Regional Member Countries (RMC).
It was founded in 1948.
Its fundamental duty is to fight poverty and improve the standard of living of the continent by investing in projects and programs which uplift the socio-economic conditions of the common masses.
The Headquarter is located in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. But it moved to Tunis, Tunisia in 2003, before returning in September 2014.
The African Development Bank is controlled by a Board of Executive Directors, made up of representatives of its member countries.
Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina is the 8th elected President of the AfDB Group, on September 1, 2015.
Member governments are officially represented at the African Development Bank by their Minister of Finance, Planning or Cooperation who sits on the AfDB Board of Governors.
It is to be noted that Cabo Verde and Libya are the only two countries without the beneficiary of AfDB or ADF.

The AfDB comprises three entities:

African Development Bank is making loans and equity investments for the socio-economic advancement of the RMC.
The bank provides technical assistance for development projects and programs.
It promotes investment of public and private capital for development.
The bank assists in organizing the development policies of RMCs.
The AfDB is also required to give special attention to national and multinational projects which are needed to promote regional integration.
Other functions include

Mobilizing financial resources from the Government or the foreign financial institutions with
A view to lending the money for development of specific sectors of the economy.

The African Development Bank promotes economic development and social progress of its RMCs in Africa.
Its relatively small lending and tendency to follow in the footsteps of more prominent public institutions like the World Bank, implies that the African Development Bank has been receiving little interest from civil society organizations as well as academia.
African Development Bank emphasizes the role of women along with education reforms, and lent its support to key initiatives such as debt alleviation for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries And the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

India joined the African Development Fund in 1982, and became a member of the Bank in 1983.
India is a non-regional member of the Bank.
India and Africa share a great relationship, and have great degree of commonalities in terms of a shared history, and current challenges.
In March 2018, the Bank and the International Solar Alliance signed a joint declaration committing to scale up the partnership on renewable energy for Africa’s development needs, such as the Bank’s transformative Desert to Power initiative in Africa’s Sahel and Sahara, which envisages 10 GW of solar power generation and providing clean energy access to 90 million people.
In addition to trade, India has undertaken significant investment initiatives in recent years to strengthen its strategic partnership with Africa, and has become one of the largest investors, mainly in energy, construction,
ICT, and the railway and auto industries.