Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina has been re-elected to serve a second five-year term as President of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) on Thursday, August 27, 2020, by the Board of Governors of the bank. According to the official statement by the AfDB, the globally-renowned development economist and World Food Prize laureate and Sunhak Peace Prize laureate, received a 100% of votes of all regional and non-regional members of the bank.
The election took place on the final day of the 2020 Annual Meetings of the AfDB Group, which was held virtually for the first time in the bank’s history.
Bismarck Rewane, a leading economist and CEO of Financial Derivatives, says, “The re-election of Dr. Akin Adesina is an epoch-making event for the African continent. It goes a long way towards erasing the stereotypical image of Africans in general and Nigeria in particular as lacking in the discipline of transparency, accountability and governance. For the institution, the African Development Bank, it provides a major opportunity for it to play a more catalytic role in the development of a continent in dire need of liberation from the pangs of multidimensional poverty, a debt trap and anaemic economic growth. The AfDB is expected to become more dynamic under the stability of the leadership of Akin Adesina especially with the increased shareholder funds and depth of intellectual capital that it currently possesses. It is in fact a new day for Africa.”
“Congratulations to Dr Adesina for his re-election… The shareholders of AfDB could not have selected a more appropriate person to support Africa to ‘build forward together’ post-Covid-19. He is not only a passionate and visionary leader but also has the execution capacity and empathy to help Africa unleash its great potential. AfDB is a unique organization founded by all African countries in the 1960s and subsequently joined by non-African countries in an exemplary partnership to build a first-class ‘AAA’ entity. It is an organization that responds to Africa’s needs like no other entity because it has Africa’s DNA embedded in it,” says Arunma Oteh, academic scholar, University of Oxford, and former Treasurer and Vice President, World Bank.
In December 2019, Adesina, known for his trademark bow-tie and his keenness for continental development, was the recipient of the African of the Year award and was on the cover of FORBES AFRICA.