AfDB: invest in African infrastructure

GOVERNMENT

The President of the African Development Bank Group has challenged African countries to remove some of their reserves from European and American banks and invest in infrastructure projects for Africa.

AfDB President Donald Kaberuka was speaking at the 32nd Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), held in Maputo, Mozambique.

Fourteen heads of state from Angola to Zimbabwe attended the summit, along with Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, South African Minister of Home Affairs and incoming Chairperson of the African Union Commission, and H.E. Joachim Alberto Chissano, former president of Mozambique and SADC mediator on the conflict in Madagascar.  

Kaberuka challenged African countries to remove some of their reserves from European and American banks and invest in infrastructure projects for Africa, particularly for the SADC Region. To this end, Kaberuka proposed that each Central African Bank invest 5% of its reserves in an African Infrastructure Bond. 

“Fifty years of aid or development cooperation as it is sometimes called must have taught us many things,” Kaberuka told the summit. “Most important of all: Africa’s future must depend on its ability to fund its development from a whole range of sources."

“As the world gets more complicated, and multilateral solutions get weaker and weaker, we need more home grown domestic solutions,” Kaberuka added. “Africa, united, is on the brink of a breakthrough.”