The bowtie bows out: Adesina’s 10 years at AfDB

As he steps down after a decade at the helm of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina leaves behind a transformed institution. Known for his broad smile and trademark bowtie, Adesina has long embraced his nickname of Africa’s “optimist in chief.” At AfDB, Adesina expanded both the bank’s resources and its profile on the global stage. The capital tripled from $93 billion when he took office to $318 billion today. Under his leadership, AfDB pioneered new approaches to development finance — becoming the first multilateral development bank to issue hybrid capital, a type of financing that combines features of debt and equity and helps expand lending capacity; raising $750 million in 2024; and championing the rechanneling of International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights to strengthen multilateral lending. “Most would acknowledge that AfDB has become very innovative when it comes to financial innovations,” said Annalisa Prizzon, principal research fellow at ODI. “Adesina is also leaving a very transparent AfDB, as its sovereign portfolio has been rated as one of the most transparent across all multilateral and bilateral donors.” He also leaves behind a solid, coherent 10-year strategy, Prizzon added. Brenda Chongo Chanda, head of economic management and governance at the African Center for Economic Transformation, or ACET, agreed: “When you look at Adesina’s decade as the president of the African Development Bank, his reign was characterized by strategic reorientation, visibility, and financial innovation.” Still, his tenure was not without controversy or criticism. Allegations of favoritism clouded his 2020 reelection before he was ultimately cleared, while experts point to results that did not live up to project ambitions. “His reign was also characterized by delivery and structural gaps,” said Chanda, noting delays on flagship projects and missed opportunities for AfDB to amplify its voice on global debates. The son of a farmer from Oyo State, Nigeria, Adesina rose through academia — earning a bachelor’s in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ife, now known as Obafemi Awolowo University, in Nigeria in 1981 and a doctorate in the same field from Purdue University in the United States in 1988 — before taking on some of the continent’s most stubborn development challenges. As Nigeria’s agriculture minister from 2010 to 2015, he spearheaded reforms that increased access to improved seeds and fertilizer, boosting food production and earning him recognition as Forbes Africa’s Person of the Year in 2013. That record helped propel him to AfDB presidency two years later, where he set out to scale his vision from national to continental level. Adesina’s last day was Sunday. His successor, Mauritanian economist Sidi Ould Tah, takes the helm of the Abidjan-based bank today. Term 1: High 5s and high expectations When Adesina succeeded Rwanda’s Donald Kaberuka to lead AfDB in 2015, he inherited a bank that had already won credibility for navigating the 2008 financial crisis and ramping up infrastructure lending. But Adesina wanted to put his own stamp on AfDB, and he wasted no time. “We must take bold steps, think differently, and act with a greater sense of urgency,” he said during his first speech as president. “Africa cannot stand by with such massive resources for both conventional and renewable energy, and yet be known for the darkness, not the brightness, of its cities and rural areas.” Indeed, he quickly laid out his vision through his signature framework, the “High 5s" — five priorities that would guide the bank’s work: light up and power Africa, feed Africa, industrialize Africa, integrate Africa, and improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. “The High 5s made the bank’s work simple to communicate and defend,” said Chanda. AfDB reorganized itself in order to deliver, with Adesina creating three new vice presidencies: one for power, energy, and green growth; another for agriculture, human and social development; and the third for the private sector, infrastructure, and industrialization. The bank also began decentralizing operations to regional offices, though experts said the shift fell short of its goals. “At a country level, we see that offices continue to operate with limited authority for decision making,” Chanda noted. “This somehow makes the bank less effective on the ground when you compare it to its peers like the World Bank.” True to his roots, Adesina maintained a focus on agriculture during his terms, often arguing that a continent with so much arable land should not rely on food imports. As part of its “feed Africa” pillar, the bank aimed to boost productivity, build infrastructure, and support agribusinesses. In 2024 alone, the bank said it supported more than 25,000 agribusinesses and reached 1.5 million farmers with climate-resilient technologies. And while its scale was impressive, some critics warned that its focus on industrial farming risked displacing smallholders and increasing dependence on multinational seed and fertilizer companies. “Its current trajectory raises concerns about inclusivity, environmental sustainability, and the long-term viability of small-scale farming,” the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa argued in 2024. Beyond food systems, Adesina sought to position AfDB as a convener of capital. The Africa Investment Forum, launched in 2018, was designed to bring investors, governments, and project sponsors together to close deals — and has since generated more than $150 billion in interest. And the following year, Adesina announced Desert to Power, an ambitious plan to deliver 10 gigawatts of solar energy across 11 countries of the Sahel by 2030. But six years on, the initiative has approved financing for just 225.5 megawatts — less than 3% of its target — with most projects still in early stages. “Desert to Power’s failure to deliver on ambitious energy targets leaves millions without electricity, undermines confidence in development initiatives, and shrinks prospects for economic growth,” wrote Daniel Johansson and Todd Moss of the Energy for Growth Hub. While some delays were outside the bank’s control, including COVID-19 and political instability. Others, they argued, reflected unrealistic targets and a lack of an implementation road map. Term 2: Turbulence and transformation Adesina’s second term began under a cloud of controversy. Ahead of his uncontested reelection for a second term in 2020, a group of whistle-blowers accused him of steering contracts to acquaintances and appointing relatives to key positions. AfDB’s ethics committee cleared him, though the U.S. Treasury, under then-Secretary Steven Mnuchin, pressed for further scrutiny. Adesina vigorously rejected the charges. The scrutiny resurfaced in 2022 when an article in The Economist reported concerns about weak governance at AfDB, including claims of intimidation of oversight officials and the dismissal of an independent evaluator. Adesina again pushed back, stressing the bank’s record. “We are a AAA-rated financial institution, the only one in Africa. We have consistently maintained our stellar AAA credit ratings by all major global credit rating agencies … Over the past six years, through our High 5 programs, our work has impacted on 335 million people. We deliver great value,” he said at the time. Nevertheless, Adesina quickly rose above the controversies. In 2022, the African Development Fund — the bank’s concessional arm that provides critical financing to Africa’s poorest and most fragile countries — secured $8.9 billion replenishment for its 2023–2025 cycle, its largest ever. Coming at a time of mounting debt distress across the continent, when concessional financing is both scarce and desperately needed, the record size of the ADF-16 package was seen as a vote of confidence in AfDB’s ability to channel resources effectively. In 2024, the bank again broke new ground by issuing the first hybrid capital transaction by a multilateral development bank. The $750 million transaction was oversubscribed — meaning there was a huge amount of interest from investors. Analysts lauded the move. “AfDB has blazed a path ahead of other MDBs. It has committed to using the lending headroom created by the initial issuance for environmental or social lending, consistent with the bank’s mission,” wrote Nancy Lee and Samuel Matthews of the Center for Global Development. “If there is another item on the MDB reform agenda that is more of a win-win proposition than hybrid capital, we are not aware of it.” "We’re a very innovative bank,” Adesina told Devex in an interview in January. “There's not enough resources to go around. So if you have a small amount of oranges, you squeeze everything out of every single orange you have, right? And so we are doing that in a very constructive way for the low-income countries.” Perhaps the most visible initiative of Adesina’s second term was Mission 300. Announced in 2024 and launched formally this year, the program aims to provide electricity access to 300 million Africans by 2030. It is jointly spearheaded with the World Bank — a partnership many observers view as exemplary, given the two institutions’ history of operating in parallel rather than in lockstep. The scale of the ambition is striking. AfDB has committed $18.2 billion alongside the World Bank’s $30 billion to $40 billion. Since mid-2023, Mission 300 has already connected 21 million people, with another 89 million in the pipeline. At its inaugural summit earlier this year, dozens of African governments endorsed the Dar es Salaam Energy Declaration, and 12 presented national energy compacts outlining their road maps. The next 20 will be unveiled at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this September, with the remainder to follow next year. Civil society voices welcomed the effort while pressing for stronger safeguards on fossil fuels. Rajneesh Bhuee, Stop Funding Gas campaign manager at Recourse, said she wished Adesina himself had come out more forcefully on the side of renewables. In addition, she argued that AfDB should have taken a stronger position on renewables more broadly: “The AfDB in the last 10 years has not adopted a fossil fuel exclusion policy for coal,” she noted, adding that although the bank did not fund any new coal projects last year, it technically still could. The bowtie bows out As Adesina prepares to leave office, tributes have poured in from African leaders, including Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan who called him “a visionary leader, a tireless son of Africa” and Mozambican President Daniel Chapo who said his legacy was “not just institutional but impacting the lives of Africans.” In May, World Bank President Ajay Banga praised Adesina, saying he brought “vision, energy, and relentless determination” to his role, and lauded the two institutions’ stronger partnership and “new way of working.” “Adesina’s legacy is strong, and he has weathered some significant storms during his tenure, not least COVID19 and some allegations of impropriety,” said Hannah Ryder CEO of Development Reimagined, who also pointed to his laudable record of having women in senior positions at the bank. But questions remain about where the bank fell short. “We see that the bank never fully became Africa’s go-to financial institution,” Chanda said. “In moments of debt distress, affected countries still turn first to the World Bank, the IMF, and bilateral creditors for relief.” She added that AfDB could have played a stronger role by putting in place quick-response mechanisms to address liquidity crises before they escalated into defaults. There were also some missed opportunities when it came to donor engagement. “Adesina worked hard to navigate traditional donors, although it also meant he paid less attention to innovating in the Bank’s analysis and structure, and less attention to emerging donors such as China, who had previously created a 10 year fund under Kaberuka’s tenure, which has not yet been replenished,” said Ryder. Nevertheless, Adesina’s imprint on the institution is undeniable. He leaves behind a bank with greater visibility, more resources, and a stronger role on the global stage than when he arrived — though also with unfinished business on debt, governance, and Africa’s voice in international forums. That task will now fall to Tah. For his part, Adesina has acknowledged the toll of the job. “My life is always hectic. For the last 10 years, I’ve had no life,” he told Devex in January. “But I always say that I couldn’t think of anything more important than to be given the trust, the responsibility, and the resources to go and transform the continent of my birth. So this is not a job for me. This is a mission.”