The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank gather in Morocco Monday for their first annual meetings on African soil in 50 years, under pressure to reform to better aid poor nations blighted by debt and climate change.
The IMF and World Bank traditionally hold their annual gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors outside their Washington headquarters every three years.
The southern Moroccan city of Marrakesh was supposed to host it in 2021, but the gathering was postponed twice because of the Covid pandemic.
A powerful earthquake that killed nearly 3,000 people in the region south of Marrakesh last month threatened to derail the event again, but the government decided it could go ahead.
The IMF and World Bank last held their meetings in Africa in 1973, when Kenya hosted the event and some nations were still under colonial rule.
Half a century later, the continent faces an array of challenges ranging from conflict to a series of military coups to unrelenting poverty to natural disasters.