Dr Akinwumi Adesina
President | African Development Bank Group
Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina is the 8th elected President of the African Development Bank Group. He was first elected to the position on May 28, 2015, by the Bank’s Board of Governors at its Annual Meetings held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and historically unanimously re-elected in 2020.
Dr. Adesina is a globally renowned development economist and agricultural development expert, with more than 30 years of international experience. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics (First Class Honors) from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria, in 1981. He was the first student to obtain a First-Class Honors in Agricultural Economics in the history of the university.
He holds a master’s degree (1985) and a PhD in Agricultural Economics (1988) from Purdue University, USA, where he won the Outstanding PhD thesis award for that year. Dr. Adesina won the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Social Science Fellowship in 1988, which launched him into his international career.
A bold reformer, as the Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria from 2011-2015, Dr. Adesina turned the agriculture sector of Nigeria around within four years. Under his tenure, Nigeria ended 40 years of corruption in the fertilizer sector by developing and implementing an innovative electronic wallet system, which directly provided 15 million farmers with subsidized farm inputs at scale using their mobile phones. The initiative effectively ended fertilizer corruption and transformed the lives of farmers and communities.
A firm believer in private sector-led growth, Dr. Adesina radically changed the perception of agriculture in Nigeria from that of subsistence to a viable business that successfully attracted $5.6 billion in private sector investments. He also led financing initiatives to support youth engagement in agriculture and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Ultimately, under his leadership, Nigeria’s food production expanded by an historic additional 21 million metric tons.
Prior to his appointment as Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Adesina was the Vice President (Policy and Partnerships) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), where he led several bold and innovative policy and finance initiatives that leveraged over $4 billion in Bank finance commitments to Africa’s agriculture sector. Working with African Heads of State and Ministers of Finance, leaders in the commercial banking industry and Central Bank Governors across several African countries, Dr. Adesina successfully led one of the largest global efforts to leverage domestic bank finance for the agricultural sector.
Prior to joining AGRA in 2008, he had served as Associate Director and Regional Director for the Southern Africa Office of the Rockefeller Foundation for over a decade. Dr. Adesina was Principal Economist for the West Africa Rice Development Association (1990-1995), Senior Economist and Social Science Coordinator for the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (1995-1998) and Assistant Principal Economist of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (1988-1990).
A prolific writer, Dr. Adesina has authored over 70 scholarly publications on policy, agricultural development, and African development issues.
He is a globally respected economist and has served as the President of the African Association of Agricultural Economists, as well as on the Editorial Board of several academic journals, including the International Journal of Agricultural Economists. He was awarded the Outstanding Black Agricultural Economist Award by the American Association of Agricultural Economists. He was a Distinguished Africanist Scholar at Cornell University, USA.
As President of the African Development Bank, he launched in 2015 a bold strategy to transform the lives of Africans called the High 5s: to Light Up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Integrate Africa; Industrialize Africa; and Improve the quality of life of the people of Africa. The High 5s have already impacted the lives of 335 million Africans.
To attract alternative and increased investments into Africa, Dr. Adesina launched the Africa Investment Forum (AIF) in 2018, the first event of its kind, to attract global capital to support Africa’s accelerated development. The unique investment forum, which has several African and global financial institutional partners, has become the premier investment marketplace for Africa, attracting to $180 billion worth of investment interests to Africa.
Dr. Adesina has received several distinctions and global awards, including the YARA Prize (2007) in Oslo, Norway, for his leadership in pioneering innovative approaches to improve access to agricultural inputs for African farmers; Distinguished Alumni Award from Purdue University, USA, in 2008; Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009 and the Grand Commander of Great Ife in 2013, both from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria; and Borlaug CAST Communications Award in 2010 by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, USA, for his global leadership on agricultural science and technology.
He has received several honorary doctoral awards globally, including Franklin and Marshall College, USA; Purdue University, USA; Michigan State University, USA; Duke University, USA; and the University of Alberta Canada.
In Africa, he has received honorary doctorates by major universities, including Makerere University, Uganda; Addis Ababa University; The American University of Nigeria; Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria; Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria; Afe Babalola University Nigeria; Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria; Bowen University Nigeria; Veritas University, Nigeria; Bayero University, Nigeria; and the Nigerian Defense Academy.
In October 2017, his alma mater, Purdue University, USA, decorated him with its highest honor, the Order of the Griffin, a rare honor given only to 50 persons since 1893, including to Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
In 2010, Dr. Adesina was appointed by the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, as one of 17 world leaders to galvanize international support for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
In 2019, the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres appointed Dr. Adesina as one of the 23 global leaders to help end hunger and malnutrition. He serves globally as one of the Commissioners for the Global Climate Commission, co-Chaired by Bill Gates, and former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to tackle global climate change. Dr. Adesina also serves on the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.
Dr. Adesina has won several international awards including the Forbes Africa Person of the Year for his bold reforms in Nigeria’s agriculture sector; Nigeria’s Leadership Newspaper’s 2013 Public Servant of the Year, for his bold policy reforms, transparency, and public accountability; and the Extra-Ordinary
Achievement Award by Silverbird Television, Nigeria, for his achievements as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture.
Also, the West African Institute of Public Health, recognized Dr. Adesina with its 2020 Distinguished Fellowship Award, for his innovative and successful efforts to curb the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in Africa.
At a national level, Dr. Adesina has been conferred with Nigeria’s second-highest national honor, the Commander of the Order of the Niger, for his outstanding service to his country, Nigeria.
In recognition of his outstanding leadership, passion, and dedication for accelerating African development, he has also been awarded the highest national honors of nine African countries: Senegal, Cameroon, Madagascar, Togo, Liberia, Niger, The Gambia, Djibouti and Tunisia respectively.
In 2017, the World Food Prize Foundation awarded Dr. Adesina the World Food Prize, generally known as the “Nobel Prize for Agriculture”. Dr. Adesina devoted the $250,000 Laureate award to the establishment of the World Hunger Fighters Foundation, to support Africa’s youth in agriculture and to develop a new generation of world hunger fighters. And Bill Gates listed Dr. Adesina’s award of the World Food Prize and his gesture to use it to support the youth in Africa as one of the seven most encouraging moments of 2017.
In 2017, Dr. Adesina was ranked in the top 15 of the 100 most influential global leaders in multilateral development organizations.
In 2019, Dr. Adesina was awarded several distinguished awards including the prestigious Sunhak Peace Prize in Seoul, South Korea, for his global leadership on agriculture, food security, transparency, and good governance. He dedicated his $500,000 award prize to the World Hunger Fighters Foundation that he established to fight global hunger.
He was awarded the Emeka Anyaoku Lifetime Achievement Award of Outstanding International Icon by the Hallmarks of Labor Foundation, during which Chief Anyaoku, former Commonwealth Secretary General said, “Dr. Adesina’s work, and leadership are legendary, unprecedented and worthy of emulation.”
Dr. Adesina was also named the African of the Year by the All-Africa Business Leaders Awards (AABLA™™) in recognition of his bold leadership and the innovation of the Africa Investment Forum, which opened billions of dollars of investment into the continent.
In 2019, Dr. Adesina led the African Development Bank to achieve its highest capital increase since the Bank’s establishment in 1964, when shareholders raised the general capital of the Bank from $93 billion to $208 billion - a historic achievement for Africa.
In 2020, Dr. Adesina was re-elected to a second term as President of the African Development Bank Group with 100% of the votes of all 81 African and Non-African shareholder countries, the first such achievement in the history of the African Development Bank, a demonstration of global confidence in his outstanding leadership of the African Development Bank.
In 2023, Dr. Adesina and the President of Senegal convened the Feed Africa Summit, which attracted 34 African Heads of State, and the President of Ireland and hundreds of ministers from within and outside Africa, and successfully mobilized $72 billion for tackling food security in Africa – the largest ever globally coordinated effort in Africa’s history.
In 2023, Dr. Adesina was named among the 100 Most Influential Africans by the New Africa Magazine.
The leading reputation management firm, Reputation Poll International, has listed Dr. Adesina among the 100 most reputable people in the world.
