Leaders from four African countries on Wednesday shared their vision for an integrated and borderless Africa that would foster economic growth and development. The leaders spoke during a high-level presidential dialogue on day two of the African Development Bank’s 2019 Annual Meetings.

African leaders on Wednesday underscored the urgent need to fast-track the continent’s regional integration process in order to accelerate Africa’s economic transformation. The call was made at the opening ceremony of the Bank’s 2019 Annual Meetings, in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, with the theme: “Regional Integration for Africa’s Economic Prosperity.”

“We need you African bankers and African financial institutions to be actors of this regional development, to invest across borders, to finance trade and investments and make regional integration a reality,” Bank Vice President for the Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization, Pierre Guislain said at this year’s African Banker Awards in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

Central Africa stands to benefit the most from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), data from the African Development Bank shows. Hanan Morsy, Director of Research at the Bank, revealed the findings at the launch of one of the Bank’s flagship reports in Malabo, where the African Development Bank is hosting its Annual Meetings.

“If we get integration right, Africa can develop with dignity and confidence,” African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina told journalists at a press conference to herald the Bank’s 2019 Annual Meetings, due to open Tuesday in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The theme of this year’s meetings is ‘Regional Integration for Africa’s Economic Prosperity.” Regional integration gained momentum with the agreement on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in March 2018 and is now at the threshold of its launch next month.

African and non-regional donors on Tuesday pledged $17 million to replenish the Africa Solidarity Trust Fund, an initiative which aims to provide food security and eliminate rural poverty on the continent. The pledges were made at a high-level donor round table convened by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Equatorial Guinea President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, on the sidelines of the African Development Bank’s 2019 Annual Meetings currently underway in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

African Development Bank Vice-President for the Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization, Pierre Guislain, on Tuesday stressed the major role that African financial institutions play in regional integration. "These institutions finance the private sector, which has to become the engine of Africa's regional integration," said Guislain at the opening of the Association of African Development Finance Institutions (AADFI) workshop on the sidelines of the Bank's Annual Meetings in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. The future of slums will tell us much about the future of African cities & democracies.

Africa’s growing slums are complex, diverse neighborhoods with their own histories. Currently, these places, characterized by spatially concentrated poverty and human rights abuses, are where large proportions and, in many cases, the majority of Africa’s growing urban populations live. These slums often have a politics characterized by clientelism and repression, but also cooperation, accountability, and political mobilization. Importantly, they must be understood within a wider political context as products of larger historical processes that generate severe inequalities in standards of living, rights, and service provision. Varied approaches (modernization vs. more critical historical and political economy approaches) attempt to explain the emergence, dynamics, and persistence of slums and the politics that often produces, characterizes, and shapes them in Africa.

At the Rome SDG16 Conference 2019, #civilsociety presented its "Rome Civil Society Declaration on SDG16+", which includes recommendations & calls to action. Read & endorse the Rome Declaration:

"The time for committed, urgent, & meaningful action is now"

As recognised by Political Declarations of the UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF) and other UN and civil society analyses, numerous challenges and structural barriers confront the realisation of the ambitious SDG16+. Collectively, the world is off track in realising the 2030 Agenda and thus realising inclusive and peaceful societies. Around the world, over 40 countries are in active conflict, and 92 countries have become less peaceful over the last 10 years. Violence causes 1.6 million deaths worldwide every year. 5.1 billion people have unmet justice needs globally.

The growing problem of youth unemployment and underemployment is one of the main socio-economic development concerns of most African governments. Without job-related skills, youth and adults cannot benefit from the employ-ment opportunities that offer a decent income.