Washington, DC — Heading the agenda at the five-day annual meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB) that opens on May 26 is the election of the multilateral development bank's next president. Five candidates are vying to succeed , who has served the maximum of two five-year terms. During his tenure, the bank's capital has more than tripled, growing from $93 billion to $318 billion. AfDB was ranked by Global Finance magazine as the best multilateral financial institution in the world in 2021, and it came in first on the two most recent produced by Publish What You Fund.

Launched in 1964 to promote economic development and stimulate investment, the AfDB Group has 54 African member states and 27 non-African member states. Each is represented on the Board of Governors, the bank's highest decision-making body, which will elect the next president during the meetings in Abidjan, where AfDB is headquartered. Adesina has long been passionate about the central role that food production has to play in Africa's development. As Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture from 2011-2015, he attacked corruption in the fertilizer sector by launching a "cell phones for farmers" initiative that provided digital vouchers for subsidized farm inputs. Before serving as minister, Adesina was vice president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). His honors include the 2017 World Food Prize, 'Africa Person of the Year' in 2013 and 2019 by Forbes and by the 'African of the Year' in 2019 by African Leadership Magazine, and the Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership in 2024. Adesina, who has Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Purdue, is also recipient of honorary degrees from numerous universities.

Sometimes known as "Africa's optimist-in-chief" for his energetic promotion of Africa's prospects, Adesina has been a visible advocate for the continent internationally, engaging with world leaders in such fora as the G7 and G20, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and policy meetings of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral development banks. Adesina, whose tenure as president ends in September, joined AllAfrica's Reed Kramer for a conversation following the latest IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington, DC. He talked about the 'High 5s' that he has made his hallmark and outlined what he sees as major achievements. He also discussed challenges he has faced and described directions that can build on successes and address Africa's challenges. 

He also addressed the impact of large-scale reductions in foreign assistance by the U.S. and European governments.Tariffs the United States is imposing on 47 countries in Africa could trigger serious economic disruptions, Adesina warned in a CNN interview on May 16 with Christiane Amanpour, reducing both export revenues and foreign reserves. Further fallout is expected if the Trump administration follows through on plans to eliminate the annual $555 million U.S contribution to the AfDB's concessional window providing affordable finance for least-developed countries, the African Development Fund, which the White House told Congress, "is not currently aligned to Administration priorities. " The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When I took over as president of the bank, my focus was how do you fast track Africa's development? So I very quickly focused on the five things I thought were very important - referred to as : feed Africa, light up and power Africa, industrialize Africa, integrate Africa, and improve the quality of life of Africans. The "High Fives" have become central to Africa's development itself [and] have been delivering for the bank and delivering for the continent.

The United Nations Development Program, own independent analysis, shows that when Africa achieves those high fives, it will have achieved 90% of  [the development blueprint adopted by the African Union] and 90% of the [17 benchmarks adopted by the United Nations]. The High Fives of the bank have become the accelerators of Agenda 2063. We're not saying we're going to wait until 2063, we're going to bring that to the present very, very quickly.

Let's take . We have connected directly - not through policy reforms or anything, but directly - at least 28 million people to electricity. If you take a look at , which is the Feed Africa strategy, we have provided food security for 103 million people.

-In the last eight to nine years, the bank has invested close to more than $55 billion in infrastructure, from rail to ports to corridors to digital infrastructure, and we've been able to connect more than 121 million people in terms of improved access to transportation services.  We've given about 128 million people access to better services because of our work on health.  We've provided access to to more than 64 million people and more than 34 million people with access to . Because of the bank's investment in , close to 50 million people have access to digital technology service

So whichever way we look at it, the bank's work over the last 10 years has impacted - when rigorously measured by the bank's Results Department - more than 565 million people. So I'm very delighted with that, because development, it's really about the people.

The role that I took on for Africa was running the bank, with my team, but also elevating Africa's voice in every single engagement globally - at the G7, the G20 - making sure that our priorities are never forgotten, but that our priorities are leading. When I started, the capital of the bank was $93 billion. Today, under my leadership and with the support of our shareholders, the capital of the bank is $318 billion. I feel tremendously proud of what we have done.

As I said from the beginning, this is not a job. It's never been a job. It will never be a job. It's a mission, it's a passion. As I bow later this year, I feel that to the best of my ability, we have performed. We have delivered. We have elevated this institution.

My principle for getting things done is what I call the . You go to any African savannah, you find these big, giant trees. When you try to put your hands around the Baobab tree, you just can't. But if you join your hands to others around the Baobab tree, you can. And so I am big on partnerships. I'm big on national partnerships, on regional partnerships, on partnerships with global financial institutions. I'm a partnership guy. I don't know how to do anything without it.

That is why Ajay Banga, my friend, the president of the World Bank, and I launched last year during the Spring Meetings , which is putting our hands together around the issue of electricity for Africa saying, how can we close that gap much faster [and] connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030.

Why is that very important? First, it allows us to work in a way that things can be done faster. In each country, we set up "energy compacts" that are uniform. So we are standardizing things. And that comes from the experience of the African Development Bank in agriculture. We are standardizing so we can make speedier progress. I was delighted that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant said that he believes multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF should go back go back to their core function of reducing poverty and stimulating growth. The example he picked was Mission 300!

Agriculture is also critical, and I am particularly proud of what we've achieved in three ways. For example, when the Ukraine-Russia war happened, the price of wheat and maize imports had gone through the roof, and it was going to cause a lot of inflation in Africa. I didn't even know that African countries imported so much food - 30 million metric tons - from Russia and Ukraine. We launched the Africa Emergency Food Production Facility to support 20 million farmers immediately in Africa to have access to seed and fertilizers and produce food. You know happened? We've produced 38 million metric tons of food, worth more than almost $14 billion.

Pick the case of Ethiopia. I remember telling Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali in 2017, 'We can help you to become self sufficient in wheat'. We supported Ethiopia to have access to heat- tolerant wheat varieties. They grew 5,000 hectares in 2018. Then they grew over 650,000 hectares of those varieties last year. The total amount of wheat area grown is more than 2.2 million hectares. Ethiopia became self-sufficient in wheat in just four years thanks to the work of the African Development Bank.

Africa has 65% of the world's arable land left un-cultivated. It's not in America. It's not in China. It's in Africa. So what Africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world. And what are we doing with that?  We decided that the best way is to make sure that Africa not only produces food, but processes food. You're producing cocoa, turn it into chocolate. You're producing cassava, turn it into starch, turn it into derivatives that make you money. Stop producing raw stuff. Are you selling your cashew raw to Vietnam and India, and others are making money when you're stuck in poverty?

We said we have to develop agriculture as an industry. And so the African Development Bank is implementing today what we call . These are dedicated 100% to agriculture and agribusiness so that whether you are a farmer or a processor, you are close to those zones of production. You reduce the amount of losses, you reduce rural-urban migration. You add value to things. You turn your cotton into textile and garment. You turn your cashew into finished cashew products, and you begin to make money out of what Africa has today.

We have invested with our partners close to $2 billion in the establishment of 28 of these Special Agro Industrial Processing Zones in 11 African countries. That's the kind of work we need to continue. Why? You cannot have inclusive growth in Africa without transforming agriculture because over 75% of the population actually depend on agriculture as a livelihood. That sector must move away from subsistence agriculture to highly productive, efficient and competitive agricultural value chains so that Africa becomes rich. I always say the door to export of raw materials is the door to poverty. The export of finished products, value-added products is the highway to wealth, and Africa is tired of being poor, and so we are doing all of this. This is an agenda that must continue.

Africa still has deficits on infrastructure, even though we have invested at the African Development Bank more than $55 billion in agricultural infrastructure in the last eight years. We are the largest multilateral financial institution financing infrastructure in Africa. We've done ports, we've done rails, we've done digital infrastructure, we have done energy infrastructure, we've done water and sanitation, healthcare infrastructure.

However, Africa still has gaps to go, and so that's why I led the bank to launch what is called . It is to mobilize, with the support of the G7 who have already supported it strongly, $10 billion of new resources to invest in greening of the infrastructure space, basically making them more climate resilient.

I think it was the New York Times that said, "one out of four people in the world going to be African." So the world is going to be more African, right? The population will go from 1.4 billion people today to almost 2.4 billion people by 2050.

As I look at the future for Africa, I don't accept that that demographic advantage should become a negative. Why should Africa's population be a problem for Africa? What we've got to do is to make sure our population, our young people, are well skilled. They have ideas, they have creativity, they have entrepreneurship. Put capital behind them, create youth-based wealth in Africa. I don't believe the future of Africa's youth is in America, in Europe, in Asia or anywhere else. It must be in an Africa growing well, able to unlock opportunities for its young people and turning its demographic advantage into an economic asset.

As I go around Africa, I see young people are frustrated. Many of them are migrating, trying to get out. And I feel ashamed about that quite honestly. We have 460.5 million young people under the age of 35. There are no financial institutions around them. If you're trying to grow maize and you put a grain of maize in the ground and there's no fertilizer, no water, how are you going to have a harvest? No, you can't. Commercial banks and financial institutions have failed the young people in Africa.

That is why the African Development Bank started a rollout of what's called . They are new financial institutions to provide access to capital, debt and equity financing for businesses of young people. Bill Gates, who is a friend, Mark Zuckerberg and others who have done great things for the world wouldn't have been able to do those things if there was no financial systems around them.

Africa is brimming with talent and opportunity, but we need to put capital at risk behind our young people. If we don't, that will be the greatest risk for Africa's social, economic and political stability, and we can't let that happen.

When it comes to development, there's no way that government alone can do everything. Africa needs to open up a lot more space for the private sector. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was the largest provider of aid to African countries. Several other countries are reducing aid. What does that mean? Benevolence is fine, but benevolence is not an asset class. I can't put it on my balance sheet. So nations in Africa must develop differently. They must unlock assets so that domestic capital and global capital can come in.

There's so much capital in the world, but most of that capital is not coming to Africa. And perception, unfortunately, costs Africa so much. Let's talk about the facts. Globally, Africa is not as risky as people think. Moody's Analytics looked at the default rates on infrastructure loans investments for 14 years, cumulatively, around the world. They found that the default rate on infrastructure investments in Africa was only 1.9%, but the default rate in North America was 6.6%. The default rate in Latin America was over 10%. The default rate in Eastern Europe was over 12.4%. The default rate in Western Europe was 4.3% and in West Asia it was 4.4%. Africa has the least default rate on infrastructure loan investments in the world.

So Africa is not that risky, but it costs Africa three to five times [more] to raise capital than any other part of the world. Because of that perception, Africa today is paying $75 billion annually for debt service - costs that it shouldn't be paying, according to United Nation Development Program, just because of this risk misperception. Africa's risk needs to be properly assessed and priced. The global financial institutions and credit rating agencies aren't doing that for Africa.

Take, for example, President William Ruto of Kenya. When there was the coup d'etat in Niger Republic, he was told that the interest rate on his bonds will increase by X amount. He said 'Niger is not in even close to Kenya'! It is that lack of understanding that leads to wrong pricing of Africa's risk. That is why the African Development Bank and I have strongly supported the establishment of the . It won't be run by governments; it will be independent, private sector-run and world class.

The African Development Bank has facilities and instruments that will help to reduce risk. Take the example of the Lake Turkana Project, Africa's largest wind farm project at more than 310 megawatts, financed from the African Development Bank. You have power being generated, but [to make it viable] the government has to construct the transmission lines from Lake Turkana to Nairobi. What happens to the developer if the government fails on its own end of the deal? That's a risk. So we provided a partial risk guarantee should the government not do that, and we've done it for many other projects. Most of the risks are exchange-rate risks, because some currencies get devalued. You're borrowing in dollars and you have to pay back in local currency. So we do of hedging and interest-rate swaps. Exchange- rate swaps.

We need to have the guarantee instruments at scale. That's why we are working to create the Africa Risk Mitigation Agency - a one-stop-shop where all the guarantee instruments are there - political risk insurance; equity risk insurance, refinancing insurance or climate risk insurance. Investors can come, we can hand-hold them and give them greater comfort investing in Africa.

For the private sector they ask: where are the bankable projects? To answer the question, the bank created , a private equity vehicle. I chair this board, and it's a fantastic institution. It was just an idea on paper when I became president in 2016. Today, it has portfolio investments - companies that invested in projects - of more than $5 billion. So just imagine what that means in bringing private capital to infrastructure with market returns, which is very important.

In 2018,I created the that brings global investors, project developers and financiers together so they can meet, and  - based on my Baobab principle - reach out to all the other financial institutions in Africa and Europe. We have the , the , , , the , the , the , and .

These are the institutions that we got together to make sure that we can do this. We bring investors to investment boardrooms; they see bankable projects that will be difficult for them to even know exists, and we put them together and we invest. In the last eight years that we've been doing the Forum, we have mobilized more than $225 billion of investment interest in projects across Africa.

Africa has the largest number of people that want to be entrepreneurs, but the question is: how to access capital. At the Bank, we don't do retail banking so we provide lines of credit to commercial banks to lend to Small and Medium Enterprises in agriculture, digital credit industries, the energy sector, tourism and all of that.

I'll give you one good example. Africa is so good with music and fashion. In Nigeria, the bank and other partners put together what is called , which is , a $618 million initiative to provide access to financing for digital SMEs, those that are doing videos and films and so on. You know in Nigeria, Nollywood is big. This program will add to Nigeria's GDP over $6 billion a year, and it will also support more than 6.4 million jobs for Nigeria.

We also have the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA), which is the platform to de-risk commercial banks or financial institutions in lending to women and it's hugely successful. Everywhere you go, most of the people selling goods and services are women. But women don't get access to finance. Why? First, because they don't have access to land in many places. So if you don't have access to land, the collateral becomes a problem. And also because women tend to be seen as riskier than lending to men, even though that is actually not the case, because 98% of women pay back their loans.

I had a conversation in Biarritz in 2019 at the G7 meeting with President Emmanuel Macron, and he helped me to mobilize support from the G7 leaders. We got $450 million for the Africa Guarantee Fund to de-risk lending by financial institutions to women. As of last year, we have approved close to $3 billion for women businesses - 28,400 businesses or women have received financing. Our goal is to mobilize up to $5 billion for women businesses in Africa. And we are more than a half way in that.

Market Africa, position Africa, attract global capital to Africa and help Africa navigate the complexity of the current environment

I'll just end on this. We need to continue to market Africa, position Africa, attract global capital to Africa and help Africa navigate the complexity of the current environment that you see. Look, if you are not investing in Africa, I have to ask you where you are investing. You've got rapid population growth, a very high rate of urbanization. You have need for energy, for water, for sanitation, for health. All the critical minerals that the world needs, all of these rare earth metals, they are all in Africa.

Africa is central, and it's very important that the approach to development is not about aid, not about dependency. It's about attracting capital to unlock the assets of Africa. It is the only way to develop with pride. And I think Africa should develop in pride. Almost anything that people call a challenge, I see as an opportunity for Africa. My time will end, but never my passion for African and confidence in Africa.