"The European Commission's executive vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, and commissioners Mairead McGuinness, Paolo Gentiloni, and Jutta Urpilainen are participating in this significant gathering of global finance with the intention of advancing negotiations on vital issues for Africa, such as debt, climate change, and development," the same source said.

"The Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF are taking place on African soil for the first time in fifty years, and we must seize this unique opportunity to make progress in the ongoing negotiations on these issues," the spokeswoman emphasized.

"We are firmly committed to continuing our efforts to implement the G20 Common Framework on Debt Treatment in a more predictable, timely, orderly, and coordinated manner," she explained.

The European Union, she added, is concerned about "the increasing vulnerability caused by debt in low- and middle-income countries, which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and worsened by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, notably its impact on food and energy prices."