In a speech kicking off his second term as African Development Bank chief, newly sworn-in President Akinwumi Adesina unveiled a sweeping vision to consolidate the institution’s successes of the last five years, hone the bank’s operations and exploit opportunities and urgency created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything globally. It has thrown Africa’s growth back,” Adesina said. “Now, we must help Africa build back boldly, but smartly, paying greater attention to quality growth: especially in the areas of health, climate and the environment.”
Adesina outlined four strategic pillars: ‘Institution,’ ‘People,’ ‘Delivery,’ and ‘Sustainability,’ that will drive five top-level goals that include deepening quality impact, and maintaining financial sustainability.
Adesina stressed the new framework would enhance and complement the bank’s ‘High-5’ priorities, which have guided its mission since 2015, and which align with other continental and global development framework.
“UNDP has shown that achieving the High-5s would lead to achievement of 90 per cent of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Agenda 2063 of the African Union,” the AfDB president added.
“We will build on the great successes we have had in agriculture, by scaling up technologies to reach tens of millions of farmers and supporting Africa to build competitive agricultural value chains. We will add value to what we produce in Africa, and provide creative and high-tech opportunities for massive youth engagement in agriculture and agribusiness.”
A significant element of the programme will entail strengthening the bank, a development that is partly responsive to the challenges spurred by the ongoing pandemic but also an element of the institution’s longer-term efforts to meet Africa’s development needs.
Adesina stated further, “The future beckons the bank to be more agile and more selective; to scale up what’s working already and reinforce its own institutional and human capacity. Our bank must ensure its own long-term financial sustainability to drive Africa’s growth further, deeper and faster in the years to come.”
