Lagos: Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has reaffirmed his dedication to Africa’s development, emphasizing that his efforts to mobilize global capital for the continent will persist beyond his term as President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), which concludes on September 1, 2025. In a keynote address titled “Tilting Global Capital for Unlocking Investment Opportunities in Africa,” delivered at the Standard Chartered Africa Summit in Lagos on July 31, Adesina articulated his enduring commitment to Africa. He stated, “Together, let us tilt global capital to unlock Africa’s assets. As I step into a new future, you can be sure this will be my focus! For I will always have Africa in my heart and in my sight.”
According to African Press Organization, the summit, themed “Africa to the Globe: Innovation, Resilience, and Growth,” attracted a diverse group of attendees, including corporate leaders, policymakers, investors, and other stakeholders. Notable attendees included Standard Chartered’s Co-Heads of Corporate and Investment Banking, Sunil Kaushal and Roberto Hoornweg; the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria, Dalu Ajene; Nigeria’s Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole; Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote; Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Chairman of FSDH Group and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School; and award-winning author, Chimamanda Adichie.
Under Adesina’s leadership, the African Development Bank has achieved significant milestones, including providing over $102 billion in low-cost financing to Africa since 2015. The Bank has raised its capital from $93 billion in 2015 to $318 billion by 2024, marking the highest capital increase in the Bank’s sixty-year history. A notable initiative spearheaded by the Bank, in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank, involves the rechanneling of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to multilateral development banks. This move aims to leverage the rechanneled SDRs as hybrid capital, amplifying their impact by four to eight times.
The Africa Investment Forum, launched by the Bank in partnership with strategic collaborators, has mobilized over $225 billion in investment interest across critical sectors such as infrastructure, energy, agribusiness, and manufacturing since 2018. The Bank has also achieved the largest social bond issuance by any multilateral development bank, amounting to $14 billion over the past eight years. In 2025 alone, $10 billion of long-term global benchmark bonds were issued to finance projects across Africa.
The African Development Bank has been at the forefront of innovative financial transactions, including the first-ever synthetic securitization of a non-sovereign portfolio by a multilateral development bank, involving a $1 billion portfolio of private sector loans. Additionally, the Bank executed the first-ever private sector hybrid capital transaction by a multilateral development bank, valued at $750 million, attracting over 275 investors with a book order of $5.1 billion, the largest ever achieved by the Bank.
Significant initiatives also include the “Room to Run Sovereign” offering, which created an estimated $2 billion in new sovereign lending headroom, and 16 partial credit and partial risk guarantees valued at close to $3 billion, mobilizing $5 billion for the continent. The Bank also facilitated a $250 million partial credit guarantee enabling Egypt to issue the first-ever Panda Bond by an African country on the Chinese capital market, valued at $500 million.
Dr. Adesina praised Standard Chartered Bank for its successful partnership with the African Development Bank, particularly highlighting a partial credit guarantee for Côte d’Ivoire in 2023. This deal won the “Sovereign Syndicated Loan Deal of the Year” at the 2025 Bonds, Loans, and ESG Capital Markets Africa Awards in Cape Town, South Africa. Standard Chartered Bank acted as the sole lender in the 2023 Côte d’Ivoire sustainable loan partial credit guarantee transaction, unlocking £533 million to meet the country’s financing needs.
Adesina urged global financial institutions to engage more strategically with the African Development Bank and other multilateral development banks to increase capital flows to Africa. He advocated for enhanced use of risk mitigation and credit enhancement instruments, mainstreaming of best practices in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and increased collaboration to expand local currency financing solutions.
Adesina’s delegation at the summit included the Bank Group’s Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure, and Industrialization, Solomon Quaynor, and the Director General of the Nigeria Country Department, Dr. Abdul Kamara. The African Development Bank’s current active portfolio in Nigeria stands as the largest within the Bank, valued at $5.1 billion and comprising 52 operations, evenly distributed between the public and private sectors.
In its ongoing efforts to foster entrepreneurship, the Bank Group is set to establish a Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank in Nigeria, as part of a pan-African portfolio aimed at creating and financing entrepreneurial opportunities for young Africans. Additionally, the Bank is rolling out Phase 1 of its Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones across eight states, including the Federal Capital Territory, with construction already underway in four states: Kaduna, Cross River, Oyo, and Ogun. Phase 2, covering the remaining 28 states, is scheduled to commence in September 2025.