The President of the African Development Bank Shri Akinwumi Adesina expresses happiness at the outcome of the annual meeting of the bank held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Addressing a press conference at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar today the Bank’s President thanked India and the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi for the success of its annual meeting. Shri Adesina said that he had fruitful meetings with Shri Modi, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitely, the Power Minister Shri Piyush Goyal and other Indian Ministers during the meeting. He said all these meetings are expeceds to substantially contribute to the bank’s new transformation agenda encapsulated in the high 5s – related to the fields of power, agriculture(food security), connectivity (transportation), industrialization(skill development) and health. Shri Adesina also said that he is happy that the Prime Minster Shri Modi had mentioned of India and Japan considering the Asia Africa Growth Corridor and he is now more confident that all this should contribute to greater development in Africa. He said the bank is looking forward to scaling up of technologies and for investments in future technologies for skilling African youth. He said that he also expects youth in Africa to more actively participate in agricultural activities to fight poverty in Africa. The President of the bank said that he even sees possibilities of films- bollywood contributing to encouraging African youth towards Agriculture.

Shri Adesina thanked the Chief Minister of Gujarat Shri Vijay Roopani and all others who helped in making the meetings of the bank a great success

The Presidents of Benin and Senegal, the Vice President of Cote D’Ivoire, the Secretary-General of the African Union, the Commissioner of the African Union Commission and the Chief Minister of Gujarat, State Government ministers were among other dignitaries who graced the bank meetings.

International development cooperation: India-supported meetings advanced the African Development Bank's High 5s agenda and technology and skills plans. The President of the African Development Bank thanked India for facilitating the Bank's annual meeting and bilateral discussions that support its High 5s development agenda-power, agriculture (food security), connectivity, industrialization (skill development), and health-and signalled plans to scale up technology deployment, investment, skills development, and youth engagement in agriculture, while linking cooperation prospects to the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor.