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Commissioner Muchanga, it is a pleasure to meet with you.

When I met with the President of Comoros in his role as the Chair of the African Union last year, we discussed the proposed permanent membership of the African Union in the G20, which President Biden strongly supported.

I was very pleased to see the enthusiastic response by G20 members under the Indian presidency and that this has now become a reality.

The African Union’s permanent membership will no doubt strengthen the G20, a body that the United States deeply values.

I look forward to exploring how we can work together to strengthen the global economy and address shared challenges like climate change, pandemics, and fragility and conflict.

These are all challenges that undermine progress on economic growth and poverty reduction.

We know that, to confront these and other challenges, the United States must work with African countries and with the African Union.

We believe in an equal partnership based on respect, mutual cooperation, frank dialogue, and trust.

My trip to three countries on the continent last year was very instructive. And my team and I are committed to continuing to engage with a breadth of African perspectives and voices.

We also welcome recent progress toward securing a third IMF Chair for sub-Saharan Africa and look forward to the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank in Nairobi in a few months.

I also look forward to discussing how we can work together to evolve the multilateral development banks to better respond to transboundary challenges, like fragility and conflict, mobilize additional resources, especially from the private sector for core priorities like building resilient infrastructure and expanding clean energy access, and achieve a strong IDA-21 replenishment focused on development impact.

And finally, I look forward to our partnership on other priority areas of shared collaboration – such as the U.S.-African Union Food Security Partnership, where we are working together to identify agriculture-related investments, including in infrastructure, that can help transform food systems and scale sustainable African food production and trade.

Again, thank you very much for joining me, Commissioner.

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