African Development Bank president Akinwumi Adesina awarded Man of the Year (Africa) in 2022 by Exclusive Men of the Year Awards – African Business

African Development Bankwww.AfDB.orgExclusive Men of the Year have named Dr. Akinwumi Adesina the 2022 Man of the Year for Africa. This is in recognition of his visionary leadership as president of the African Development Bank Group as well as his outstanding contribution to Africa as the Nigerian agriculture minister.

The EMY Africa Magazine organizes EMY Awards (https://bit.ly/3C8VdEy), “a premier men’s magazine that addresses the people, places, ideas and issues that shape men’s personal expressions, development and experiences.”

“When we look around, we see different people making their contributions to society. Africa will be Africa if it harnesses its agricultural value and moves up the value chain. One man has stood up for his inspiration, for his motivation and for making us believe with a vision and strategy that we can achieve this,” said UN Resident Coordinator in Ghana, Charles Abani, who announced the prize during a ceremony held on 1 October in Accra, Ghana.

Adesina, who was Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria from 2011-2015, is credited with turning around Nigeria’s agricultural sector within four years. Through his tenure, Nigeria ended 40-years of corruption in the fertilizer industry. Adesina developed and implemented an electronic wallet system that provided farmers with subsidized farm inputs directly via their mobile phones. This electronic wallet system was adopted by 15 million farmers within the first four years.

Adesina was the leader of the African Development Bank Group, which achieved the largest capital increase since its inception in 1964. The general capital was raised by shareholders from 80 countries on 31 October 2019 from $93 billion to a historic $208 billion.

Adesina has also led other achievements such as the Bank’s bold and swift response to the Covid-19 pandemic with the launch of a landmark $3 billion Covid-19 Social Bond followed by a Crisis Response Facility of up to $10 billion. In May this year, the African Development Bank Group’s Board of Directors approved a $1.5 billion Emergency Food Production Facility to help tackle the global food crisis sparked by the Russian-Ukraine conflict. These funds will allow 20 million African farmers to produce an additional 38,000,000 metric tons of food, in order to address rising fears of hunger and food insecurity.

In announcing the Man of The Year (Africa) award, EMY recognized Dr Adesina’s contribution as “a bold reformer” and “globally renowned development economist and agriculture development expert, with more than 30 years of experience in development.”

Since 2016, EMY Africa has celebrated the best in men’s achievements across local industry, community, culture and public service. The EMY Africa Awards recipients have been inspiring men with promising careers who have made significant contributions to African communities.  

Dr. Adesina was presented with the award by African Development Bank Ghana Country Manager for Ghana Eyerusalem Fasika, who thanked the EMY Team and all the partners.

Distributed by APO Group, on behalf of African Development Bank Group.

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About the African Development Bank Group
The African Development Bank Group is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It is composed of three distinct entities, the African Development Bank(AfDB), African Development Fund(ADF) and Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). The Bank has an office in Japan and is present in 41 African nations. This office contributes to economic development as well as the social progress of 54 of its member countries. For more information, please visit: www.AfDB.org