About 2020 Annual Meetings
The Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank Group will take place virtually from 25 to 27 August 2020. The format of the meetings has been adapted to consider the physical constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, the meetings will focus on closed statutory meetings of the Governors of the institution and on the election of a President.
The meetings are being held as the world continues to grapple with a public health crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The African Development Bank has estimated that the continent could lose at least $173.1 billion in GDP in 2020 and $236.7 billion in 2021 as a result of the economic fallout of the pandemic, which has forced several industries to shut down and has led to millions of job losses.
The Bank provided a swift response to support its regional member countries and the private sector with the launch, on 8 April, of a COVID-19 Response Facility of up to $10 billion.
This year marks the 55th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank and the 46th Annual Meeting of the African Development Fund, the concessional arm of the Bank Group.
The Governors of the African Development Bank are from the Bank’s 54 African regional and 27 non-regional member countries.
The meetings were initially to be held in May this year in Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire and the headquarters of the African Development Bank.
The Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank usually attract hundreds of delegates, including finance ministers, central bank governors, policymakers, civil society organizations, leaders of international organizations and key representatives of industry and the private sector from the Bank Group’s 81 Member States.