As his tenure comes to an end on September 1, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, President of African Development Bank, (AfDB), has reiterated his unwavering commitment to make Africa
By Jacinta Nwachukwu
As his tenure comes to an end on September 1, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, President of African Development Bank, (AfDB), has reiterated his unwavering commitment to make Africa the world’s investment growth frontier.
Adesina gave the assurance in a paper presented at the 2025 Standard Chartered Bank Africa Summit recently held in Lagos.
In a copy of the presentation obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Adesina said, beyond his official role, he would continue to mobilise, to tilt global capital to unlock Africa’s assets.
“The future of Africa is bright.
“By tilting more global capital to the continent, we can expand investments to unlock the continents vast opportunities.
“As I step into a new future, you can be sure this will be my focus!
“I will always have Africa in my heart and in my sight,” he said.
Enumerating some of his achievements, Adesina said that under his Presidency at the AfDB, he succeeded in raising the capital of the bank from 93 billion dollar to 318 billion dollar.
“This is the highest in the history of the bank since its establishment in 1964.
“Maintaining the Bank’s AAA credit ratings by the major global credit ratings agencies for the past decade has allowed the bank to issue long term debt instruments, under its sustainable bond framework,” he said.
The outgoing AfDB President said that since the initiation of the Bank’s Social Bond Issuance Framework in 2023, it has risen to the top of the rankings of social bond issuance by multilateral development banks.
According to him, the bank had issued a total of 14 billion dollar of social bonds in the past eight years.
Adesina recalled that in 2022, AfDB broke new ground with the Room to Run Sovereign deal, structuring a two billion dollar synthetic risk transfer.
He said the Room to Run Sovereign offering, created an estimated two billion dollar in new sovereign lending headroom, while also improving some of the African Development Bank’s key prudential met
According to him, the most transformative instrument for titling more global financing to Africa’s development, is the rechanneling of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to multilateral development banks.
He said the effort, spearheaded by the bank in partnership with the Inter-American Development will allow the use of the rechanneled SDRs as hybrid capital, which can be leveraged by 4-8 times.
Adesina said, the Africa Investment Forum, a strategic partnership initiative of the AfDB with coalition of eight founding partners, is also changing how capital is mobilised for Africa’s development.
“This fully transactional platform for projects has become the continent’s premier investment marketplace, where bankable projects meet with serious investors and deals are accelerated to financial closure.
“With a sharp focus on deal origination, structuring and execution, the Forum has already mobilised over 225 billion dollar in investment interest across critical sectors such as infrastructure, energy, agribusiness and manufacturing,” he said
Adesina further said that the AfDB, over the past 10 years, has transformed itself into a global financial institution with reputation and capacity to help tilt global capital to Africa.
He said the bank was ranked by Global Finance as the Best Multilateral Financial Institution in the World.
“AfDB was ranked as the second-best concessional financing institution in the world, ahead of all 55 concessional financing institutions in all OECD countries.
“The bank, for two consecutive years, has been ranked as the Most Transparent Financial Institution in the World, by Publish What You Fund.
“This year, the bank scored 98.8 per cent on the index, the highest ever in the history of the global financial transparency index,” he said
Adesina concluded that he is proud to be leaving behind, a global financial institution that will be able to work with global partners, powered by financial and institutional innovations, to further tilt global capital to Africa. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)