After 3,650 days at the helm of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina is stepping down. His decade-long presidency was defined not by donor pledges but by an audacious idea: Africa did not need aid; it needed investment.
When he took charge in 2015, the AfDB was seen as a cautious lender, funding incremental projects. By 2025, its capital base had tripled, infrastructure deals spanned from the Sahel’s solar corridors to Mozambique’s gas fields, and billions had been channeled into agro-industrial zones, railways, and bridges.
Adesina’s legacy is not only in the billions mobilized, but in reframing Africa’s narrative from recipient to marketplace, from handouts to high finance.
From lender to dealmaker
In 2019, the AfDB raised its capital from $93 billion to $208 billion. By 2024, its capital base was projected to reach $318 billion, the largest increase in its history. This financial firepower allowed the bank to finance projects that were once reserved for private investors: a $24 billion LNG development in Mozambique, $19.5 billion for Nigeria’s Dangote refinery, and a $13 billion phosphate complex in Morocco.
Adesina, a former Nigerian agriculture minister, consistently argued that aid perpetuates dependency. “Nobody ever developed through aid,” he once said. “They developed through investment.”
His “High 5s” agenda: Light up and Power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve Quality of Life was framed not as charity but as bankable opportunities. Investors were invited not to save Africa but to profit from it.
Tangible results
The approach delivered a measurable impact. Over 565 million Africans are estimated to have benefited from AfDB-backed projects. Electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa doubled from 25 percent to 52 percent over the past decade, according to data from the World Bank and International Energy Agency (IEA), aligning with AfDB’s goals.
Food security initiatives also scaled up. A $1.5 billion Emergency Food Production Facility supported 14 million farmers, helping them produce an estimated 44 million tonnes of food during the Russia–Ukraine war.
Innovative financing followed: In 2023, the AfDB issued the world’s first hybrid capital bond by a multilateral lender, a $750 million deal that was oversubscribed nearly eightfold.
For an institution once dismissed as timid, the AfDB became a continental dealmaker.
The gaps beneath the triumphs
Yet the larger question is whether this strategy truly shifted Africa’s trajectory or merely bought time.
Many economies remain debt-laden and vulnerable to global shocks. The $72 billion pledged at the 2023 Feed Africa summit in Dakar was unprecedented, yet food insecurity still afflicts millions. The Desert-to-Power initiative promises 10,000 MW of renewable energy, but vast rural areas remain off-grid.
Critics argue that by positioning the AfDB closer to an investment bank, Adesina risked sidelining smaller, less “bankable” communities. “Big-ticket projects are transformative, but they don’t automatically trickle down,” says an economist at the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative.
“A $20 billion highway from Lagos to Abidjan won’t fix feeder roads for smallholder farmers in remote villages.”
Debt sustainability is another concern. Mobilizing billions in loans can spur growth, but for countries already grappling with high debt service, AfDB’s investment-led model could prove double-edged. “Africa needs infrastructure, but it also needs fiscal room,” warns a senior IMF official. “Borrowing on this scale requires stronger domestic revenue mobilization.”
Symbolism and psychology
Still, the symbolism of Adesina’s approach may prove as lasting as the numbers. By insisting that Africa be treated as an equal investment destination, he helped shift the psychology of development finance.
When the AfDB issued a $3 billion social bond during the pandemic, it was not only responding to the crisis; it was signaling that African institutions could mobilize capital at the same speed and scale as global peers. The bank’s voice in international markets, once marginal, is now central.
This shift also repositioned the AfDB within Africa’s broader financing landscape. China remains a dominant infrastructure investor, while Western donors still pledge aid. But under Adesina, the AfDB carved out a third path: one in which African-led institutions leverage capital markets to underwrite their own development.
Legacy and what comes next
As Adesina leaves after his second term, the future direction of the AfDB is uncertain. His successor will face a choice: double down on investment-first financing or tilt back toward a traditional model of development lending.
He departs with a stronger balance sheet, deeper investor ties, and a louder global voice. Yet Africa still confronts entrenched challenges: food insecurity, climate stress, weak institutions, and the stubborn gap between high-level financing and day-to-day transformation.
Adesina’s decade will be remembered as the moment the AfDB rebranded itself as a continental dealmaker. The harder test lies ahead: can Africa turn billions in mobilized capital into broad-based prosperity, or will the cycle of dependency merely take a new financial form?
