PAR INTER PARIBUS: THE NATURE OF POWER IN COOPERATION: LESSONS (FOR THE UNITED STATES) FROM THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

This chapter demonstrates how the African Development Bank (AfDB) has been deeply shaped by the history of its continent. Fuelled by a sentiment of independence, the creation of the AfDB was driven by a determination to create a regional bank run by Africans, funded by Africans, and serving African needs. African governments’ desire for autonomy and the quest to break with distorted patterns created by Africa’s colonial past helped position the AfDB as the largest development institution dedicated solely to serve the needs of the continent. This chapter argues that, over the years and—despite significant institutional reform, including the acceptance of non-regional members in its Board from 1982, including the United States and former colonial powers—the AfDB has managed overall to preserve its ‘African identity’.

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Department of the Treasury

Issue A Journal of Opinion ◽

10.1017/s0047160700503990 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 8 (2-3) ◽

pp. 74-74

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

International Development ◽

The United States ◽

Development Bank ◽

Member States ◽

Development Fund ◽

African Development ◽

African Development Bank ◽

Development Banks ◽

The U.S

The Department of the Treasury has a limited involvement in Africa through the United States’ membership in the African Development Fund (AFDF) which the Treasury oversees. Members of the Fund are seventeen non-regional donor countries and the African Development Bank, representing its forty-five member states. The U.S. joined the Fund in November, 1975 with an initial contribution of $15 million or 4 per cent of $340 million pledged to AFDF as of April, 1977. The Administration has asked Congress to appropriate an additional $10 million in the FY 1978 budget. This figure represents 0.38 per cent of the funds requested by Treasury for international development banks in FY 1978 and 0.033 per cent of the Treasury’s total requested budget.

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Development Financing under Constraints: A Decade of African Development Bank. By Ime Ekop Ebong. Bonn-Bad Godesberg: Verlag Neue Sesellschaft GmbH. 1974. 172 pp.(special Issue No. 8 of the Vierteljahresberichte.)

The Pakistan Development Review ◽

10.30541/v14i1pp.149-152 ◽

1975 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 149-152

Author(s):

M.A. Behzad

Keyword(s):

Main Idea ◽

Development Projects ◽

Development Bank ◽

Special Issue ◽

Investment Bank ◽

African Development ◽

Know How ◽

African Development Bank ◽

Basic Infrastructure ◽

The Given

Development Financing under Constraints, as the author himself puts it, is 'aimed to recapitulate the spirit in which the African Development Bank was founded, describe how it later functioned and why it functioned the way it did'. The study is an excellent attempt to highlight economic cooperation and integ¬ration and to discuss its rationale in view of the given constraints. The main idea behind the establishment of an institution, like the African Develop¬ment Bank (ADB), was necessarily an 'all-African Investment Bank' to promote development projects. The newly independent nations of Africa, lacking as they are in the basic infrastructure, are beset with difficulties in surviving as economically viable units. As such, the need for a pooling of resources and for technical know-how is particularly imperative

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