(AfDB ) - The 54th Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the African Development Bank and the 45th Annual Meeting of the African Development Fund, the concessional arm of the Bank Group, will be held in Malabo, Republic of Equatorial Guinea from 11 to 14 June 2019.

The Annual Meetings are the Bank’s largest event and will bring together about 3000 delegates and participants. The Meetings provide a unique forum for representatives of governments, businesses, civil society, think tanks, academia and the media worldwide, to dialogue on key issues concerning Africa’s development.

This year’s calendar of events includes a High-Level Presidential Dialogue on the topic: Boosting Africa’s Economic Integration. There will also be a special presentation of the Bank’s flagship African Economic Outlook publication for 2019, released in January.                                       

The theme of this year’s Annual Meetings is “Regional Integration for Africa's Economic Prosperity” which is one of the Bank’s five strategic priorities.

With 1 billion people, Africa has a combined GDP of more than $3.4 trillion. Such a market could create huge opportunities for producers on the continent. But, to make it a reality, African governments and regional economic communities must intensify efforts to facilitate the free movement of goods, services, people and trade across borders.

The Governors of the African Development Bank are from the 54 African regional member countries and 27 non-regional member countries.

Journalists interested in covering the Annual Meetings must send the letter by which their media organization designates them to attend via e-mail to the following address: media@afdb.org.

They will then receive a personal code which will enable them to register online. Only registered journalists accredited by the host country will be allowed access to the Annual Meeting events.

Note: TV crews will need to send an exhaustive list of their equipment, indicating their flight details (departure and return dates, flight numbers etc.) and their passport details to the same email address. 

The deadline for registration is 15 May 2019.

For more information: http://www.afdb.org/am