Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations,

The United Nations (UN) has pledged to support the African Development Bank (AfDB)’s power project known as ‘Desert to Power’ initiative in Africa.

A statement by the Communication and External Relations Department of AfDB on Tuesday said the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, made the pledge when he met the president of the bank, Akinwumi Adesina in New York.

The ‘Desert to Power’ initiative is expected to provide electricity to 250 million people on the continent.

The project is a 10 billion dollars initiative to build a 10 GW solar zone across the Sahel, the largest in the world, aims to develop and provide 10 GW of solar energy by 2025.

The statement reported Guterres as saying that UN offered to convene a special global meeting on Lake Chad, in consultation with President Muhammadu Buhari.

The statement said Adesina’s meeting with UN Secretary-General was a highly productive engagement and committed to enhance strategic and operational partnerships between the UN and the bank.

“I am encouraged by the Secretary General’s generous support for the bank’s development initiatives, which we are certain will bear fruit across the continent.

According to the statement, the two heads of institutions met following Adesina’s trip to the United States for the World Bank’s annual Spring meetings in Washington DC.

It also disclosed that the AfDB’s president briefed Guterres about the ongoing discussions on the bank’s General Capital Increase (GCI-7) designed to address Africa’s growing lending demands.

“Guterres and Adesina also discussed the bank’s inaugural Africa Investment Forum, held last year in Johannesburg, where projects worth 38.7 billion dollars secured investment interest.

“The Secretary-General accepted Adesina’s invitation to participate in the 2019 edition of the event, to hold in November in South Africa”