Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina has just concluded two terms as President of Africa’s most important and resource-rich financial institution, the African Development Bank Group.
During his presidency he successfully convinced shareholders to raise the general capital of the Bank from $93 billion in 2015 to $318 billion; the highest capital increase since the Bank’s establishment in 1964, while maintaining the Bank’s slew of Triple AAA ratings.
Over the last decade, under Adesina’s watch, the Bank has also invested more than $55 billion in infrastructure on the continent—a little over half of the $102 billion in total investments during the period.
Steering Through Storms
His presidency spanned the Coronavirus, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Trump Presidency, among the most consequential geopolitical events since the end of the Second World War, all lumped into a span of five very short and very long years.
These challenges turned out to hold unprecedented opportunities, inspiring remarkable responses from the Bank, and the continent it serves.
Covid laid bare disturbing gaps in global health equity, compelling the Bank to launch a $3 billion Covid-19 Social Bond and then a $10 billion Crisis Response Facility.
The Russian invasion exposed Africa’s severe food security vulnerabilities, triggering the launch, just months later in May 2022, of the $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF).
And then the Trump presidency, which—by putting up a mostly baseless yet strident opposition to a second Adesina term—gingered up African leaders and governments into a united coalition to stand up to and defy external bullies.
A Presidency of Purpose
Adesina came into office in 2015 bearing a High-5 agenda: Light Up and Power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa, Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa.
A decade later, over half a billion Africans have been positively impacted by the High 5s, according to the Bank.
There are many achievements to be credited to the Adesina era, not least of which is the vastly increased prominence of the Bank on the global stage.
As he told journalists during the Bank’s annual meetings in Abidjan in May 2025, “the African Development Bank you have today is not the African Development Bank you used to have. This is a global institution now.”
The AfDB is perhaps the biggest advocate—alongside the Inter-American Development Bank—of the rechannelling of the International Monetary Fund’s SDRs towards the benefit of the world’s poorer countries; a move that could see as much as $80 billion of low-cost financing made available to these countries in dire need of it.
Ambitions beyond Africa
Quite a number of the Bank’s achievements are not just African records, but also global ones:
• $14 billion in social bond issuances, the largest by any multilateral development bank, amounting
• The world’s debut synthetic securitization of a non-sovereign portfolio by a multilateral development bank
• The world’s debut private sector hybrid capital transaction by a multilateral development bank, valued at $750 million, with a book order of $5.1 billion, making it the largest ever book order by the African Development Bank.
• Pioneering Security-Indexed Investment Bonds (SIIBs)
• A $250 million partial credit guarantee that enabled Egypt raise the first ever Panda Bond (on the Chinese capital market) by an African country
• A 2021 ranking of the Bank as the best multilateral financial institution in the world, by Global Finance Magazine.
• A 2022 ranking of the African Development Fund in second place of all close to 50 concessional financing institutions in the world, by the Center for Global Development
• 2022 and 2024 rankings of the Bank’s Sovereign portfolio as the most transparent in the world by Publish What You Fund.
Adesina’s Presidency also saw the launch of several initiatives, typically in partnership with other multilateral development banks, continental and regional institutions, African and foreign governments, and the private sector, that will hopefully outlast his presidency.
These include:
• Africa Investment Forum (AIF)
• Africa Disaster Risk Financing (ADRiFi)
• African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF)
• Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)
• Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA)
• Africa Financial Stability Mechanism (AFSM)
• Africa50
• Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa (AGIA)
• African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation (APTF)
• The Lusophone Compact
• Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs)
• Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks (YEIBs)
Banking on Africa’s Future
Adesina’s successor, Dr. Sidi Ould Tah of Mauritania, will naturally be expected to stamp himself on the Bank, so it should be expected that there will be changes in Bank style and approach in the months and years to come.
Whatever these changes might be, they will hopefully build on the solid foundation laid over the last decade, and swing the needle even more boldly in the direction of more focus, more impact, and more influence.
All of which will mean more development for a continent that is the world’s remaining frontier in many ways.
As “Triple A” signs out of what he has described as a “mission” and not a “job”, the world will be eagerly awaiting what lies ahead, not just for the Bank under the deeply experienced, reassuring Ould Tah—but also for its eloquent, energetic, charismatic immediate past President: Africa’s bow-tied Optimist-in Chief and Master Builder.
