H.E. Mia Amor Motley, QC, Prime Minister of Barbados, is this year’s keynote speaker at the sixth annual Babacar Ndiaye Lecture; Drawing parallels from the events that led to the creation of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) (www.Afreximbank.com), this year’s lecture theme is “Africa and the Developing World in a Turbulent Global Financial Architecture”; The sixth annual Babacar Ndiaye Lecture is the first in-person edition of the event since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and will be held at the Ritz Carlton, on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank meetings, on October 14, 2022, in Washington DC, USA.
After two years of virtual Lectures, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) will hold its annual Babacar Ndiaye Lecture on 14 October 2022 in Washington, DC, USA. This year’s event will be held under the theme “Africa and the Developing World in a Turbulent Global Financial Architecture”.
Speaking during a press briefing this past Friday, 7 October 2022, and leading the coordination of the 2022 edition Babacar Ndiaye Lecture, Dr Hippolyte Fofack, Chief Economist and Director of Research at Afreximbank, elaborated on the importance of this year’s theme, “Africa total external debt is less than $800 billion. That makes it about a third of Italy's debt. Yet we talk more about Africa’s debt than Italy(...) Compared to France and America, the African sovereign debt spread is prohibitively high.”
This year’s keynote lecturer is Prime Minister of Barbados, HE Mia Amor Mottley, QC. “She is really a fantastic and amazing speaker. She also happens to be one of the rare politicians who understands the arcane language of finance fairly well.” Speaking on why he believes that Prime Minister Mottley is the right person to articulate and elaborate on the theme of the Lecture, Dr Fofack recalled to his meeting with the Prime Minister on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, “One important point she made was that you have a country like England. It took them maybe 100 years to pay in the debt that they incur during the last war, yet, many developing countries in the Caribbean Africa are actually more subject to short term, short term loan than longer maturity.”
The government of Barbados recently released what they called the “Bridgetown Initiative” (https://bit.ly/3RQ1nPB). We expect Prime Minister Motley to elaborate on this programme so that we have concrete policy actions come out of the IMF/World Bank meetings.
Held annually on the sidelines of the World Bank meetings, the Babacar Ndiaye Lectures serves as a nexus for Afreximbank shareholders, partners, and professionals, along with existing and potential clients spanning all industries. The event also welcomes senior government officials and central bankers, leaders and representatives of international organisations and DFIs, researchers and members of the academic community, as well as the continent’s diplomatic corps and Chambers of Commerce.
Speaking on the importance of the upcoming lecture Dr Fofack said, “it's very important to stress that what we are going to be doing next week, is not just a technical academic exercise, it's also a policy exercise, which is likely to have tremendous consequences on the life of Africans and others around the world.”
The Babacar Ndiaye Lecture will be streamed live from Washington, DC. To register visit https://bit.ly/3rMeaYN
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Afreximbank.
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About Afreximbank:
African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is a Pan-African multilateral financial institution mandated to finance and promote intra-and extra-African trade. Afreximbank deploys innovative structures to deliver financing solutions that support the transformation of the structure of Africa’s trade, accelerating industrialization and intra-regional trade, thereby boosting economic expansion in Africa. A stalwart supporter of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), Afreximbank has launched a Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) that was adopted by the African Union (AU) as the payment and settlement platform to underpin the implementation of the AfCFTA. Afreximbank is working with the AU and the AfCFTA Secretariat to develop an Adjustment Facility to support countries in effectively participating in the AfCFTA. At the end of 2021, the Bank’s total assets and guarantees stood at about US$25 billion, and its shareholder funds amounted to US$4 billion. Afreximbank disbursed more than US$51 billion between 2016 and 2021. The Bank has ratings assigned by GCR (international scale) (A), Moody’s (Baa1), Japan Credit Rating Agency (JCR) (A-) and Fitch (BBB). The Bank is headquartered in Cairo, Egypt.
