After several diplomatic pirouettes around the delicate issue of when the African Development Bank will return to its former headquarters in Abidjan, President Donald Kaberuka confirmed at the bank’s annual meeting in Lisbon on 9-10 June that it will return to Côte d’Ivoire from its temporary headquarters in Tunis ‘in the shortest possible time’. Kaberuka’s publicly stated determination on the issue follows a lengthy meeting with Côte d’Ivoire’s new President Alassane Ouattara after his inauguration at Yamoussoukro on 21 May.

On 3 June, AfDB directors approved a US$150 million loan to back the Ouattara government’s social sector and adminstrative reforms. Ouattara, who wants to re-establish Abidjan as a leading financial centre in West Africa, will be heartened by AfDB’s new commitment. Within days of coming to power in April he re-established operations of the Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest in Abidjan and has grand plans for the redevelopment of the regional stock exchange launched there in the mid-1990s.

AfDB directors had wanted to wait another three years after Ouattara’s accession to power before making a clear commitment to return, but lobbying by the Ivorian leader’s allies among bank shareholders seems to have won through. Before it returns, the bank may have to build an entirely new headquarters perhaps in Cocody district away from its former location in the Plateau district which was badly battered by the war.