Welcome

Excellencies, Governors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Central African Republic, I extend a warm welcome to you all, and hope you will consider yourselves “at home” here in beautiful Bangui, “la Coquette”, at the heart of our continent, where the 2025 African Caucus meetings will be held.

On behalf of His Excellency, Professor Faustin Archange Touadéra, President of the Republic, Head of State, and of the entire population of the Central African Republic, it gives me special pleasure to express our joy at seeing our country, the Central African Republic, host the 2025 African Caucus. Ignoring clichés, and the recent reductive narrative about our country, I invite you to discover our history, and the richness of our natural and cultural heritage, as well as the efforts being made by the Government to consolidate the resilience of our nation, which is gradually recovering after three decades of instability, conflict, and violence.

The context in which these meetings will be held is unusual, given the external shocks to which we are exposed: security and climate shocks; the persistence of geopolitical tensions and global macroeconomic uncertainty; the retreat from multilateralism, with the immediate consequence of a sharp decline in official development assistance; and a liquidity shortage compounded by credit costs and exceptionally high levels of debt in many countries, including some of the most advanced economies.

Nonetheless, we must harness the momentum for reform of the Bretton Woods institutions, which, eighty years after their creation, need to grant fairer treatment to African countries; reform of the global financial architecture; and the opportunity to raise our continent’s voice provided by the African Union’s admission to the G20.

In such circumstances, the African Caucus, created in 1963 in the spirit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), must act as a force for concrete proposals in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG). It must present a common position on development issues that are critical for Africa, and a shared ambition to speed up our countries’ development and thus underpin the well- being of our peoples.

The topic of this year's meeting, ”Resilient Infrastructure, Human Capital, and Green Wealth: Critical Levers for Strong, Inclusive, and Sustainable Growth in Africa,” provides an opportunity for us to engage in a high-level conversation on the demands of economic emergence, to make the most of the context in which we are operating, and turn our challenges into opportunities.

It will enable us to discuss issues such as: (i) the urgency of accelerating access to the energy that our economies so badly need, as part of a just and equitable energy transition for Africa; (ii) the need to sustainably reduce the internal and external enclave status of our countries; (iii) how to satisfy the institutional and infrastructural prerequisites for unlocking the potential of the private sector; (iv) the integration of green wealth into GDP, to gain access to innovative financing and, in this context, address the debt problem; (v) the opportunities generated by technological innovations, including digitalization, in efforts to revitalize sectors such as public finance, education, health, and financial inclusion; and (vi) capacity strengthening and the role of our multilateral development institutions.

We must leverage our strengths—our unity, our determination, our collective intelligence, and our commitment to strong, inclusive, and sustainable growth for our continent—to make the Bangui meeting a milestone in our steadfast march towards a better future for our peoples and our future generations.

I reiterate my welcome and wish you a pleasant stay in the Central African Republic, and more particularly in the green city of Bangui “la Coquette”.

Ndjoni Gango – Bienvenue – Welcome – Bem-vindo - أهلاً وسهلاً بك