Nigeria is in a unique position to tap into the emerging global finance that would increasingly promote sustainable development, according to Roberts Orya the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Export – Import Bank.
Nigerians now lead the two frontline Pan African Development Finance Institutions. Erstwhile Nigerian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwumi Adesina assumed the leadership of African Development Bank (AfDB) on September 1. Later that month, another Nigerian, Benedict Oramah, became President of Africa Export – Import Bank (Afreximbank).
These Nigerians were appointed to work for the entire continent.
But their nationality provides Nigeria an opportunity for closer affinity with these institutions beyond being the biggest financial contributor to them. There are important values these institutions offer. The AfDB and Afreximbank – compared to their global or foreign cousins – are better placed to understand the local context to our development and support country-owned initiatives. This point is validated by Adesina’s pledge to focus the interventions of the AfDB on supporting power reform, agriculture, SMEs and youth empowerment in Africa. This is missile-accurate. Adesina, like his predecessor, Donald Kaberuka, is poised to making the AfDB catalytic for African growth and for solving Africa’s development challenges, based on deep knowledge of the local context. His work in reforming Nigeria’s agriculture tells how much help he can lend from his new vantage position.
Another area of benefit is expansion of Nigeria’s network within the global community of Development Finance Institutions, according to Orya.
“I have seen first-hand the importance of this point since my ascension to the presidency of the Global Network of Exim Banks and Development Finance Institutions (G-NEXID) earlier this year. Nigeria needs to network better with the global development community.”
The AfDB and Afreximbank are important institutions in expanding capacity for the country’s national DFIs. This would naturally cover sharing project knowledge, joint project development and transfer of funding capacities by the regional DFIs to the national DFIs through establishment of lines of credit. This will help in channeling interventions more sharply to the areas of need and impact, as national DFIs even understand the local needs better.
Afreximbank has a suite of products and services to help Nigeria facilitate international trade. Nigerian banks and corporates can benefit from the trade support facilities of the Bank. NEXIM Bank has been in collaboration with Afreximbank to unlock more resources in the critical area of growing Nigeria’s non-oil exports. A number of Nigerian export manufacturers have benefitted from this cooperation.
Both the AfDB and Afreximbank are banks of not only the present but also of the future. Afreximbank grew its total assets by 25 percent in 2014 to $5.45 billion. A much-bigger bank, the AfDB has $100 billion capitalisation. Both institutions are able to leverage their balance sheets to evolve into much bigger institutions. The AfDB just raised nearly $1 billion in additional resources through its new Africa50 Fund, which has been set up to mobilise long-term savings within and outside Africa to finance infrastructure projects across the continent.
“In conclusion, one of the greatest economic challenges Nigeria faces is how to economically empower the youth. The answer to this is support for entrepreneurship. Nigerian youths have been actively engaged in business creation. They control the entertainment industry and are expressing themselves in the technology sector. If we managed to unlock funding for these and other sectors, the doldrums that a recession symbolises would become a possibility farfetched for Nigeria. The good news is that the DFIs are well-focused and increasingly resourced to support the commercially viable enterprises of our vibrant youths to complement national efforts,” Orya said.
