President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, together with 22 other African leaders, are calling on the donors of the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group to raise an ambitious US$100 billion to support a resilient African post-COVID-19 recovery and to help African countries transforms their economies.
They also pledged to work on improving their capacity to absorb resources for the diligent executive of projects and programmes and to continue efforts to mobilise tax revenue, and to use transparently and efficiently the mobilised resources, while strengthening governance.
The leaders further resolved to accelerate economic recovery from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, scale-up investments in human capital, and increase their job creation efforts and called for expanded access to vaccines which is critical for rapid recovery of the world economy.
The African leaders made the call at the end of one-day IDA20 Replenishment Advocacy summit of Heads of States and governments of some 23 African countries and the World Bank Group held in Abidjan. The conference, organised by the World Bank was opened by Alassane Ouattara, President of Cote d'Ivoire.
The IDA20 Replenishment Advocacy meeting aimed at mobilizing African leaders to solicit for higher funding from donors for the IDA20 cycle to support green and resilient recovery from challenges accentuated by COVID-19.
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, while supporting the call, noted that: "if OECD governments can borrow more than US$18 trillion to respond to the pandemic, donors should be able to find US$100 billion to replenish IDA20 to fund vital health care, education, social services and welfare protection for the world's most vulnerable societies".
He said this in a speech read on his behalf by Charles Adu Boahen, Minister of State at the Finance Ministry who led a four-member team to represent Ghana.