Salute to Dr. Kaberuka &African Development Bank
After two terms at the helm of one Africa’s premier
institutions, Dr. Kaberuka steps down from the
Presidency of the African Development Bank (AFDB) in
September. He has truly been the virtuoso who guided the
prominent multifaceted African institution through the
stormy times of the global financial crisis,
climate-change and emergence of China. He prudently
steered Africa’s financing institution and placed the
continent on the best path for sustainable development.
Dr. Kaberuka assumed the reigns of the bank to the
backdrop of a continent marred by the AIDS epidemic,
weak political institutions and heavily burdened by
debt, to go along with the previously lost decade of
conflicts, lack of policy improvements and poor growth
for Africa.
More recently the majority of African economies were
unscathed by the financial crisis as most of them were
not interconnected with world financial markets, the
high oil prices and greater foreign direct investments
inflows in the prior years helped it cope with the later
shocks as demand fell and the heavily commodity
dependent African nations suffered.
During his tenure, Africa benefitted from the rising
prices of its plentiful extractive industries and the
continent saw positive growth with some countries in the
double digits, with better macro-economic footing and
politically more confident on the world stage, the
continent took on pressing issues such climate change on
the world stage as a more unison entity.
The path that the president of the African Development
Bank led Africa in the last decade has been a one where
infrastructure development was deemed a priority and
crucial to the innovation and diversification of African
economies. Dr. Kaberuka made infrastructure a key
component of his Africa growth strategy and the biggest
percent of the bank’s nearly 30 billion active
portfolios is investment in infrastructure. President
Kaberuka has often emphasized the infrastructure that
Africa’s trade desperately so needs, transportation,
telecommunication (fiber-cable) and energy production
and distribution. Under his leadership the African
Development Bank has been the catalyst, finding the
resources for infrastructure project and coordinating
with the other institutions on the continent such as the
Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) and the
efforts of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD)
together with others.
Unfortunately with all the per capita GDP growth and
overall improvements in the human development indicators
in the last decade under, most of the countries will not
meet the Millennium Development Goals, the benchmark set
by the United Nations, which speaks to the larger social
deprivation present on the continent and signified by
the many African countries represented in the UN’s Least
Developed Countries (LDC).
Akinwumi Adesina Nigeria’s agricultural minister became
the first Nigerian to assume the helm of the Bank, ,many
firsts for Nigeria recently it became Africa’s largest
economy overtaking South Africa, President Buhari became
the first Nigerian to oust a sitting president through
the ballot box, and the African Development Bank elected
its first Nigeria’s, fitting It was 50 years ago this
year in 1964 that the inaugural meeting of the Board of
Governors of the African Development Bank convened in
Lagos, Nigeria.
On this golden anniversary of the bank, It is certainly
with all the hope in the world that Akinwumi Adesina can
build on previous achievements and usher in new
prospective to deal with adversarial problems
confronting the continent and help it attain its much
desired sustainable developmental goals.
Africa has to move beyond relying on commodities and
concentrate moving up the value chain, dependence on the
fluctuating primary commodities as export cannot suffice
any longer. Investment to develop the human capital of
the continent as half of Africa’s nearly one billion
population are younger than the 20 years.
The new president must carry on the bank’s mandate to
integrate African economies, and find new ways to fund
infrastructure, it must garner the much needed financing
from the international markets for its infrastructure
developments by further continuing to strengthening the
political democratization already taking foothold on the
continent, only with greater transparency and stability
can it reassure investors and secure the much needed
funds. Regional integration must bet the priority in its
infrastructure projects as regional economic blocks will
be the only way for intra-trade between member countries
and the path to a more robust economic footing for
Africa.
In this golden anniversary of the African Development
Bank’s the outgoing president who spearheaded Africa’s
premier development institution in the last decade hands
over a AAA-rated Bank , with billions in capital and
this is a Salute to him.
Geleh Ali Marshal
Geleh@hotmail.com
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