ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire, May 29, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Statement by Cristina Duarte, Minister of Finance and Planning, Republic of Cabo Verde (http://www.minfin.gov.cv):
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture, was elected on the 28th of May 2015 as the next President of the African Development Bank. I would like to congratulate him and Nigeria.
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Photo: http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/index.php?level=picture&id=2022 (Cristina Duarte, Minister of Finances and Planning, Republic of Cabo Verde)
I would like to thank all the governments and people that supported my candidacy throughout this journey. I am indeed humbled for your support and to have competed in the election. I would also like to thank all my compatriots and government for presenting and supporting my candidacy until the end. Thank you to all the candidates for having participated in a transparent and democratic process that allowed Africa to show the way. Africa won.
Now it is time to get back to work. As a pan-Africanist, I will continue to be engaged with the Bank and to contribute in any possible way to support the newly elected President and to push for the necessary reforms to ensure that our Bank, the African Development Bank, becomes a catalyst for Africa’s transformation.
This will require that we build on the progress of the last 50 years while addressing emerging challenges. In this respect, we must ensure we build a meritocratic bank, with a laser focus on results and development impact, efficiencies and effectiveness, enhanced dialogue and high quality advisory services for African governments. The African Development Bank must become innovative, and we must leverage the Bank’s convening power to mobilize partners and stakeholders, including African governments, development agencies and partners, private sector, commercial banks and civil society to jointly address the major challenges of our times from regional integration, women empowerment, institutions, science and technology, insularity, climate change to issues of fragility.
In short, our agenda must be to end the business of managing poverty and to refocus our efforts on creating and better managing our wealth in Africa. On this, I will expend all my energies in the coming years and ask that we all reengage to ensure that the aspirations of the 1 billion or so Africans yearning for a new dawn in Africa, an Africa that is at peace, an Africa that is competing as an equal on the global stage and an Africa that is able to take care of its own becomes a reality.
Viva Africa! God Bless Africa!
Cristina Duarte
Minister of Finance and Planning
Republic of Cabo Verde
Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of the Ministry of Finances and Planning, Republic of Cabo Verde (http://www.minfin.gov.cv).
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