The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has canvassed the use of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) of the IMF in supporting African countries to tackle the challenges of climate change, debt, insecurity and the effects of the Russia-Ukraine crisis on their economies.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the annual meetings of the AfDB in Accra on Friday, Adesina disclosed that the African regional bank had been working with other multilateral development banks to rally support from the leaders of developing and developed nations for its proposal to channel SDRs through multilateral development banks.
The SDRs are international reserve assets created by the IMF to supplement the official reserves of its member countries.
He said Africa could accelerate its development and cope with these challenges on their economies.
“We should use the SDRs in more pragmatic ways to support countries,” the report by the Graphic newspaper on Monday quoted Adesina as saying.
It added that Adesina stated that providing the SDRs through multilateral development banks had several benefits which include leveraging the SDRs by a factor of four times, absorbing the SDRs by the bank as equity, which will expand their lending capacity to countries and using the SDRs to provide additional capital and financing for the development banks in Africa as part of the financing in common.
According to him, the SDRs can also be provided as concessional loans for the African Development Fund and that providing the SDRs for multilateral development banks would make them become game changers for the accelerated development of countries.
In his remarks at the ceremony, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo called on wealthy economies to re-channel a portion of their Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) sitting with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Africa to help fight hunger and food insecurity.
President Akufo-Addo, who was represented by Vice-President, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, said that it would also augment health provision in the face of the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
According to the report, this was contained in the ‘Accra Declaration’ issued by the President, in consultation with African Finance Ministers, at the end of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Annual General Meetings in Accra last Friday.
The declaration was handed over to the President of the AfDB, Dr Akinwuni Adesina, by the Vice-President, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, on behalf of President Akufo-Addo.
President Akufo-Addo said the SDRs could be disbursed to the continent through the AfDB for investment in projects critical to the recovery of the citizens and the economies from the pandemic.
In the same vein, Ghana’s Minister of Finance, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, stated that initiatives such as re-channelling the SDRs through the AfDB would go a long way towards mobilising the requisite capital for the continent’s development.
Mr Ofori-Atta, who is the outgoing Chairman of the Board of Governors of the AfDB, added that it would also help enhance the prospects of market access for economies on the continent.
He said that the discussions during the annual meetings had re-affirmed that despite the many challenges ahead, their collective resolve could ensure that “we nurture an enduring recovery that creates prosperity across our entire continent and helps us create the Africa we want”.
GIK/APA