(Posted 12th September 2024)
The African Development Bank has kicked off activities to celebrate 60 years of its transformative impact on Africa’s development.
Since September 1964 when representatives of 25 African countries gathered in Khartoum, Sudan, to agree on the vision for a bank to drive economic development across Africa, it has been a journey of resilience and passion, including a fair share of bumps and bruises.
Georges Rigobert Aithnard, the Bank’s oldest retiree, captivated attendees at the 60th anniversary commemoration event on Monday 09 September, with his account of the challenges faced by the then-fledgling institution. Speaking as part of a staff panel discussion, the 89-year-old offered unique insights into the Bank’s formative years.
From his role in 1965 as Personal Assistant to the first President of the Bank, to his retirement as Director of the African Development Institute of the Bank in 1995, Aithnard showed deep enthusiasm for his work and a strong belief in the future of the Bank.
He recalled a time when the Bank president struggled to secure a meeting with the vice president of a sister multilateral development bank.
That has since changed, he told the audience of past and present Bank staff, partners, and senior government officials. He affirmed that the African Development Bank has emerged as a leader among its peers and a powerful voice within the multilateral development community.
“When I joined the African Development Bank in 1965, the Bank was much more modest than it is today. There has been robust progress over the years,” Aithnard said. “Despite the fears and challenges the Bank faced then, it confronted problems head-on, secured global ratings, and continued to increase its capital. Today, we are delighted that the Bank has overcome its fears to become a global development institution with influence beyond Africa.”
He encouraged the Bank’s staff and management to continue to work hard, make sacrifices, and believe that the institution can make a greater difference in African countries. “Once knocking on others’ doors, the Bank now finds others knocking on its own. The success of the Bank should be an incentive to the staff,” he added.
Dr. Victor Oladokun, Senior Advisor on Communication and Stakeholder Engagement to the President of the African Development Bank Group moderated the discussion, which featured staff representing various levels of the Bank’s structure.
The Bank’s Director General, East Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery Office, Nnenna Nwabufo, described the institution as Africa’s partner of choice.
“The Bank is at the centre of the conversation on Africa’s development. It has become Africa’s partner of choice. When African countries want to discuss development, they come to the African Development Bank because it has become a trusted partner,” she said.
She shared the example of the Bank’s work in fragile states, where it continues to have an impact despite obvious challenges. “In our work with fragile states, we don’t see the challenges, we see opportunities.”
Nwabufo joined the Bank’s Treasury Department in 1991 and has held increasingly senior positions, rising to become a director general in January 2021.
Jerome Berndt joined the African Development Bank as a Young Professionalin 2016. He has since progressed to become a Principal Fragility and Resilience Officer in the Transition States Coordination Office.
“The learning and friendships I experienced at the Bank over the years have been the greatest inspiration of my career,” Berndt said.
He praised the strong work and contributions of the Bank’s staff and acknowledged the crucial support of partners. “Some of the Bank’s unsung heroes are the young professionals,” he noted.
Joséphine Sallah Ayari, speaking on behalf of the General Services Staff, and Hannatou Mamane, representing the Short-term Staff, also reflected on their work at the Bank, highlighting the changes initiated by the Bank’s President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, to support staff progress.
Ayari highlighted how the Bank has overcome many challenges to become a resilient institution where staff are proud to work.
Summing up her thoughts, Mamane said: “We have to be optimistic. We have an optimistic President who has worked very hard to put the Bank at the heart of Africa’s development. As staff, we have a duty to work even harder. ”
Meanwhile must the African Development Bank expand its support for female entrepreneurs, as well as young innovators and business creators, to reduce poverty and tackle the lack of jobs in Africa, according to young African entrepreneurs.
The African youth business representatives were speaking during a panel discussion on the topic “Our world, our experience”, organised shortly after the launch of the Bank’s 60th anniversary celebrations.
Jean-François Yao, Regional Policy Advisor in charge of Institutional Partnership at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), praised the Bank’s new approach, which now factors in humanitarian emergencies to development issues.
“The African Development Bank is already doing great things in the humanitarian domain and for a raft of organisations that help to reduce human suffering, and we congratulate them for that,” said Yao. He went on to reiterate that the Bank’s first action with the ICRC, conducted after the signing of a letter of intent in 2019, had made it possible to launch a pilot project empowering women in the Sahel. This project has provided support for vulnerable women and widows affected by the crisis in the Sahel, particularly in Chad, Mali and Niger, and has transformed the lives of numerous people.
“A Malian woman who sold doughnuts received 200,000 CFA francs,” said Yao. “This enabled her to develop her business, then to make fruit juice, and today she works in second-hand clothing. She was able to buy a plot of land and begin building her own house. She has also been able to send at least three of her six children to a private school.”
He expressed his satisfaction with the results of this groundbreaking partnership, which was bolstered in 2023 by a memorandum of understanding. This memorandum has made it possible to launch a humanitarian project in South Sudan that will benefit a million internally displaced people. Although the Bank’s and the ICRC’s activities run in parallel, the two institutions have found a shared starting point from which they can implement a development-humanitarian nexus, and they plan to sign a framework agreement in the near future to further strengthen this partnership.
In the opinion of the private sector representatives, the Bank’s actions need to be clearer and more visible. Better still, the Bank must increase and diversify its operations to develop the private sector, which is the principal provider of employment.
Christelle Essim Egue, Lamin Barro and Stéphane Aka-Anghui, who all operate in the Ivorian private sector, shared their experiences of working with the Bank Group and their vision for the institution over the next decade.
“Previously, I produced 500 packets of doughnuts a day; today, I produce 60 packets per minute,” said a visibly proud Christelle Essim Egue, an Ivorian entrepreneur and founder of Pam Holding, a firm specialising in the production of doughnuts and natural pepper. “With the Bank’s support, we were able to create other products.”
Courtesy of the Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative, which supports women entrepreneurs continent-wide, Christelle received 40 million CFA francs in financing from AFAWA via the pan-African bank ECOBANK. Today, her company is flourishing, and she is preparing to open a new factory and diversify her business by investing in palm oil production. For her palm oil plant, she will need to raise 500 million CFA francs and may turn to the Bank for support.
Lamin Barro, meanwhile, an innovator and developer of IT solutions, and the CEO of Etudesk, a start-up specialising in online training, has previously partnered with the African Development Bank. The Bank called on his company’s services to support 200 young innovators in Egypt. In Côte d’Ivoire, his start-up helps more than 800 people – in public institutions, local and pan-African companies, and subsidiaries of multinational corporations – in the sphere of technological innovation.
Praising the Bank’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab initiative, the young up-and-coming entrepreneur stressed that the Bank must help young Africans “to create and innovate”. He added: “One of my dreams is to see an incubator or innovation centre in every university in Côte d’Ivoire, and even in Africa. We can promote ‘education entrepreneurship’ i.e. setting up one’s own business while still at university.” He went on to emphasise that Africa must stand up and be counted when it comes to technological developments such as artificial intelligence, blockchains, etc. As far as this CEO is concerned, the Bank must increase its presence on social media to encounter young people with whom it can “co-develop projects.”
Pointing out that Côte d’Ivoire’s private sector generates 500,000 jobs a year, Stéphane Aka-Anghui, Executive Director of the General Confederation of Businesses in Côte d’Ivoire (CGECI), is calling for a special partnership with the Bank hinged on a shared objective: to industrialise Africa, create jobs and promote start-ups and innovation among young people.
“The Ivorian government wants to create eight million jobs by 2030,” he stated. “This can only happen if we create a large number of businesses. If we start one million businesses, they can generate 10 million jobs.”
The CGECI, which has more than 4,000 companies in Côte d’Ivoire under its umbrella, provides more than 80 percent of the country’s tax revenue. It has already benefited from support from the Bank to help businesses structure themselves better and take advantage of the common market of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The CGECI hopes to develop other initiatives with the Bank’s assistance, such as the national champions programme and the CGECI Academy, an initiative that provides support to start-ups.
Following a stirring speech from Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President and Chairman of the Boards of Directors of the African Development Bank Group, at the launch of the institution’s 60th anniversary festivities, Aka-Anghui asked him to find the time to come and deliver a similarly inspiring message to Côte d’Ivoire’s business leaders, to encourage them to become true champions for Africa.
