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Business Reporter
ZAMBIA will host the 2016 Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) this month starting Monday, May 23 to Friday 27 at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka.

The theme of this year’s meetings is “Energy and Climate Change”, and draws on one of the regional bank’s priority focus to “Light up and Power Africa”.

The focus on energy and climate change is timely for the world and particularly Africa, given that about 645 million Africans do not have access to electricity, said AfDB.

It further said 700 million have no access to clean cooking energy while 600,000 die each year from indoor pollution due to reliance on biomass for cooking.

The theme also reflects the bank’s new thrust on energy development and the key resolutions from the recent worldwide United Nations climate talks (COP21) on global warming.

“The 2016 annual meetings theme is aligned with two of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 7 to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all and SDG 13 to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,” said AfDB.

The bank’s annual meetings are its largest annual event, and its biggest window to the world. The meetings bring together some 5,000 delegates and participants from across the continents and feature some 40 official events in addition to the annual meeting of the board of governors, which constitutes the core purpose of the meetings.

The bank’s governors are the finance, trade or economic development ministers from its 54 regional and 26 non-regional member countries.

The meetings represent the definitive forum for representatives of government, business, civil society and media – from Africa and beyond – to debate the social and economic development of the continent.

The Bank’s support is directed towards public sector infrastructure projects in agriculture, industry, water and sanitation, energy, the social sector (education and health) and transport.