Akinwumi Adesina, AfDB

Akinwumi Adesina, President, African Development Bank Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, shares with Leo Komminoth his views on investment opportunities, fi nancial management and the growing threat of climate insecurity. Adesina: ‘Natural gas is not an ideological issue, it’s a pragmatic issue’

As president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina proudly announced $63.8bn in investment pledges for the continent this year, at the African Investment Forum in early November in Abidjan. New African managed to catch up with

New African: The IMF has announced that sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP growth is expected to slow sharply in 2022. Has it been harder to originate investment projects?

Akinwumi Adesina: from the rest of the world when it comes to the global challenges we face today. think what is very important is that Africa

Growth has now been challenged, livery of goods and services. The price supplies coming out of Russia and out of tion even worse for countries that depend on borrowing. All of this creates a lot of pressure on our economies. But I do feel that African economies are quite resilient.

At the African Investment Forum I saw a lot of enthusiasm. People are looking to Africa because it is a continent in which there are still opportunities to invest. structure. Almost anything in Africa is an investment opportunity.

At the African Investment Forum we infrastructure projects in Africa. dence in projects that are brought to the Africa Investment Forum transactional platform. We organise it with the heads of state in the room to discuss with the business in Africa, where the heads of

Are you seeing international capital pulling back?

ture. infrastructure in a sustainable way? First we must realise that infrastructure is not just the business of the state. A lot of ships, opening up opportunities for the private sector.

How do you attract the private sector to invest in infrastructure projects in Africa?

To attract the private sector means that there have to be a lot of bankable projects. Preparation Facility, in which we spent in infrastructure. eign wealth funds and insurance pools of infrastructure as an asset class, it would

fund the next generation of infrastructure and key development projects in Africa?

sentially private sector lending assets, and we rolled them over to the private sector by the private sector into those assets.

And just a few weeks ago, with the support of a guarantee facility from the transfer again to institutional investors. are what you need to get institutional investors in Africa to trust that they can invest and make money in infrastructure.

I would say that African countries should not under any circumstances use

How can the AfDB promote renewable energy and, at the same time, provide development and electricity for all?

ment in energy generation in Africa is

pragmatic person. Africa needs to have an energy mix that allows it to have access its population. Most importantly, to have the security of supply for industrialisation. So natural gas plays a very important role in the energy mix of Africa. It’s not, for me, an ideological issue. It’s a pragmatic issue.

Moving from coal to natural gas for your power plants would reduce your petroleum gas would reduce emissions ecotourism. That’s why we need to provide energy to people. petroleum gas for cooking, and compressed gas for transport. With gas pipelines all the way from Lagos to Morocco For Africa to help secure energy supply for Europe is good for itself, is good for Europe and good for the environment.

‘African countries should not under any circumstances use their natural resources to back infrastructure loans’

Last October, the Bank published a report which links security, investment, and development. What is the strategy to stem the consequences of insecurity?

climate change. I went to parts of

Mauritania which were so dry that

And this is leading to increased rural Lack of access to feed for livestock and a shrinking space for crop pro farmers and pastoralists all across recruited to turn against the state if

And there’s the high unemployment rate amongst the youth. Africa has a also discouraged. That fuels insecurity. there is peace and security. So, we’ve got to understand and tackle the root causes of these things. That’s why Africa change. The developed countries promise ally for climate adaptation. To tackle these insecurity challenges driven ligation to developing countries in Africa.