Unanimously re-elected at the 55th General Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) on August 27, Akinwumi Adesina – sworn in on September 1 – is the 8th President since the creation in 1964 of the largest multilateral financial institution on the continent. . The Nigerian leader thus emerges victorious from a period of governance crisis unprecedented in the history of the AfDB. If the next few years promise to be full of challenges, La Tribune Afrique takes the opportunity to review what has been, over the years, the strategic leadership within this illustrious institution which aims to stimulate the development of the 'Africa. Decryption.

In the commune of Le Plateau in Abidjan, the emblematic headquarters of the African Development Bank (AfDB) takes on the mythical character of this pan-African multilateral financial institution, created in Khartoum in 1964. This imposing "aura" draws its essence from the leadership developed in the post-independence years. “Historically, there is not a place in Africa which, per square meter, harbors such a high level of intelligence as at the AfDB. It's not about being a Doctor or a Professor, it's about having people who, in their respective fields, have advanced skills. Such profiles, brought together with a vision for Africa, are legion at the AfDB. I say well, historically, ”said an anonymous former director, interviewed by La Tribune Afrique. In 56 years, eight presidents have succeeded at the head of the AfDB. The last, Nigerian Akinwumi Adesina, was unanimously re-elected on August 27 in an electronic vote at the 55th general meetings held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He was invested on Tuesday, September 1, in Abidjan. While the first two presidents of the AfDB laid the foundations for the institution's future, history records that the Sudanese Mamoun Beheiry carried out the first operations in July 1966: an equity investment in the Sierra Leonean Development Bank and a loan 2.3 million dollars in Kenya for the construction of a road. The AfDB then boils down to 10 employees, 23 member countries (only African and independent) and a capital of 250 million dollars. With the Tunisian Abdewahad Labidi, the ADB launched the African Development Fund (ADF), experienced its first capital increase, laid the first stone of its Abidjan headquarters and faced the oil crisis of 1973. Kwame Donkor Fordwor, “le Kwame Nkrumah of the AfDB” The Ghanaian Kwame Donkor Fordwor (1976-1979), will mark the spirits by his leadership and his pan-Africanist spirit. An employee of the time still speaks of it with emotion: “Fordwor was the Kwame Nkrumah of the AfDB. It was the affirmation of Africa and above all a very high level of technicality”. Kwame Donfor Fordwor at the AfDB Fiftieth Anniversary Forum, May 26, 2015 in Abidjan. This retired international civil servant remembers a mission entrusted to him in Guinea Bissau in 1976, three years after independence. “We were a group of two experts and had to work on a rural electrification project. Very little data on the country was available at that time.” After desk work in Abidjan, the duo goes into the field in Bissau. “The government had assigned us as a local correspondent a European expert, collaborator of the Minister's adviser. When we presented the cost of the project as we had assessed it, the expatriate expert considered it to be incorrect. What we thought was impossible. Our mission could not move forward because this consultant said that we had lowered the costs too much and that they should be higher”, says this former manager at the ADB. “Will you be ready to leave the AfDB if your numbers are wrong? It turns out that in the middle of this misunderstanding, Kwame Donkor Fordwor goes to Guinea Bissau. “We told him that the expert sent by the government was preventing us from moving forward. Fordwor asked us only one question: ''If I bring in experts from another international organization to study this project and they confirm that your figures are wrong compared to those of the expatriate consultant, will you be ready to be fired from the AfDB?” We looked him in the eye and said, “Yes, we are ready”. He said to the minister: ''Let my experts do their job''. Unbeknownst to its collaborators, Fordwor contacted experts from the World Bank for an evaluation of the Bissau-Guinean project. Two and a half months later, the AfDB duo was invited to present their mission report to the Board of Directors. “We knew that he had ordered a counter-expertise, because he will say it in front of all the administrators: 'What I want in this Bank are quality experts. This report was made by two AfDB officials. I asked the experts of the World Bank to evaluate it and their result shows only a difference of 2% compared to the cost proposed by our experts''. According to our source, the president “had discovered that a large European company was funding the expert recommended by the Guinea-Bissau government”. Disciplined and passionate about competence and quality of work, Fordwor undertook several reforms at the AfDB and led a major capital increase. He, who had nevertheless started his campaign for a second term, unfortunately resigned. In question, internal friction. A Ghanaian account of his career invokes "great animosity and envy from many African representatives at the Bank" resulting from his exploits. According to those who knew him, Fordwor had a "strong character which meant that he couldn't stand certain things". Leading thinker of the entry of non-regionals into the capital of the Bank to help it better mobilize resources on the financial markets, Fordwor publishes after his departure a book on the ADB, evoking the problems of international cooperation. Malawian Vice-President Godwin Gondwe assumed the interim presidency until the arrival of Zambian Wila Mungomba in June 1980 for a five-year term. "In normal Africa, it is impossible for a deputy to shine more than the president" This lawyer who worked for the United Nations, the IMF and the World Bank will be a rather special leader. According to former collaborators, “the Bank has begun to move the lines” under his mandate. After the oil shock of 1979, the AfDB faced a crying need for resources to support the weakened economies. It is then that the entry of non-regionals into the capital of the institution materializes, which then obtains its first double A rating. Over the course of these achievements, the assistant to the president will be particularly noticed. “Mungomba was not very attached to the files, he let it happen. This is why Babacar Ndiaye was able to shine, ”says our source. “It was quite curious, moreover, remarks this former manager at the AfDB. In normal Africa, it is impossible for a vice president to be laden with laurels around the world while the president is there. This is already a huge leadership! “, he relativizes, before adding:” Generally, when a vice-president shines more than the president, his head is cut off. So, congratulations to Mungomba who didn't cut off Ndiaye's head! ". Babacar Ndiaye, the “BAD brand” Captain of the ship from 1985 to 1995, the Senegalese Babacar Ndiaye inaugurates the two mandates as President of the ADB. The first African to be crowned best banker of the year in the world by the London magazine International Finance Review in 1984, the new leader had many exceptions: the institution's first employee in 1965, he was the first and last - to date - to become president. “President Ndiaye has changed the AfDB enormously, in particular with the reformulation of all the major procedures. He was a great professional. He knew the institution, knew his men and loved them”, explains one of his advisers at the time. Babacar Ndiaye will lead in 1987 the fourth capital increase of the ADB, up to 200%, establishing it at 22.3 billion dollars. His collaborators at the time also credit him with an internal recruitment technique adopted by certain multinationals. “For one week, all positions were vacant and internal professionals could, on the basis of a Job description, apply for three positions. External consultants carried out written and oral tests over two weeks. This resulted in assignments. The first time this technique was applied in the world, it was at the AfDB and it was an idea of President Ndiaye”, testifies a former official in East Africa. Under the leadership of the Senegalese chartered accountant, the AfDB obtained its first triple A rating from Fitch Ratings and Moody's, then Standard & Poor's. Babacar Ndiaye also appoints the first female vice-president - the Sudanese Bodour Abou Affan. Pan-Africanist at heart, he thinks of several initiatives aimed at increasing the action of the AfDB, such as the creation of the private sector in the Bank's operations, the round table of African businessmen (chaired by the Beninese Samuel Dossou Aworet), or the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). "Ndiaye understood that the AfDB could not do everything alone," said his close friend. Many have lent him the ambition of a third term, but for his intimates, it would only be a "baseless rumor" fed following a reform. “One of Ndiaye's problems was that he terminated the terms of directors who had been at the AfDB for four to five terms. Some had become permanent. Ndiaye had devised a system that only allowed them to sit for two years. Many resented him. We therefore suspected him of wanting to serve a third term, but no one can prove this with a written document, ”explains the adviser. On the departure of Ndiaye, the Bank is however in a difficult financial situation, which complicates the choice of his successor. Babacar Ndiaye congratulates Omar Kabbaj, his successor. Omar Kabbaj, the architect of the relaunch President of the ADB in September 1995 after a 14-round ballot and negotiations between African powers, the Moroccan Omar Kabbaj, former minister, has the heavy task of raising the institution's counters. This will go through several difficult reforms, much criticized but fruitful, including a cut in the workforce, the abandonment of certain projects and the increase in the voting rights of non-regionals from 33% to 40%, thus giving them a blocking minority. , after a capital increase of 35%. "The non-regionals do not want to impose their points of view, but to avoid an African coalition imposing its own on everyone", Kabbaj explained to our colleagues at Jeune Afrique in 2005. "We felt during the mandate of Kabbaj that the West had the upper hand, but this westernization of the ADB - if I can put it that way - was necessary, because it was necessary to strengthen the technical position of the Bank, connect it to the international financial system, strengthen its credibility to having investors through successive bond issues and above all bringing in fresh capital... That's what he did and it was beneficial,” a financial analyst close to the institution told LTA. Omar Kabbaj led the temporary move of the ADB offices to Tunis in 2003. This earned him some misunderstandings in Côte d'Ivoire in particular. But after the crisis of 1999 when the Bank was confronted with difficulties in its operations, the failed coup of September 19, 2002 was the last straw. “An international bank like the AfDB cannot function without being in constant contact with the financial markets. Several billion dollars are at stake. In addition, the AfDB works with the whole of Africa. She has more than six hundred projects to follow. This means that the Bank's activities cannot withstand the slightest interruption. Its reputation and profitability depend on it,” defended Kabbaj to JA, emphasizing that in addition to these strategic factors, the safety of the staff – victims of robberies and assaults – was at stake. Adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco since 2006, Omar Kabbaj leaves in August 2005. Many have criticized his relationship with others, but he has the merit of having left the ADB in financial health, which enabled his successor to start on a dynamic note. Donald Kaberuka, a worker who “commands respect” When the Rwandan Donald Kaberuka took over the reins of the institution, the African economy was doing fairly well and ended 2005 with GDP growth of 5.3%. The President of the AfDB must sustain the achievements of the Bank and hoist the institution to new heights. Former minister of finance and economic planning and craftsman of the "Rwandan miracle", he has something to hold on to, even if those who worked with him often describe him as austere. “President Kaberuka is the kind of character whose person you may dislike for X or Y reasons, but he commands respect through his work. He's a hard worker and his results at the head of the AfDB have spoken in his favour”, testifies a manager in the ranks of the Bank. Donald Kaberuka places serious emphasis on investment in infrastructure and support for the private sector. Its technical skills enabled the AfDB to support African economies during the global financial crisis of 2008, but also to carry out the sixth capital increase and again obtain Fitch's triple A rating in 2013, retained until this day. “Kaberuka brought back great leadership to the AfDB. When I met him at the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Singapore, he had just taken over the presidency. He was already talking about some of the projects he was thinking of for the ADB and which he did indeed carry out, ”confides a boss in the investment sector. Beyond that, the annals of the Bank proudly report the return of the AfDB to its statutory headquarters in Abidjan in August 2014, after 11 years of relocation to Tunis. Kaberuka had issued several conditions there. “The AfDB had demanded from the Ivorian authorities the updating of a certain number of privileges from which its civil servants were to benefit, but also that the Bank be the owner of the land on which the headquarters was built, approximately 4,700 m2. Abidjan accepted it, doing even more, adding just over 5,000 m2. The State of Côte d'Ivoire has therefore ceded a total of nearly 10,000 m2 to the ADB, free of charge and definitively. For all the efforts made for the return of the ADB, Côte d'Ivoire has nevertheless spent several billion CFA francs, which is not nothing. And the country has begun to reap the benefits,” analyzes Guy Gweth, president of the African Center for Economic Intelligence and Intelligence (Cavie). Donald Kaberuka left through the front door in August 2015. However, his detractors criticized him for not having embodied the balance of English-speaking and French-speaking Africa that he inspired on his arrival, believing that he will have served English-speaking countries more. Akinwumi Adesina, the challenges of a second term Eighth President of the AfDB who arrived in September 2015, the Nigerian Akinwumi Adesina is already playing the first cards of his second term. At his inauguration on Tuesday, he made a point of stressing that his re-election, "with 100% of the votes of regional and non-regional shareholders - without the slightest abstention, is an unprecedented event in the 56 years of the Bank's history". It is his victory over what nearly destroyed the achievements of a long and prestigious career: the governance crisis that rocked the AfDB this year, following allegations of mismanagement by a group of whistleblowers. With its strategy called "High 5" and broken down into five axes (Light up Africa and supply it with energy; Feed Africa; Industrialize Africa; Integrate Africa; and Improve the quality of life of African populations) , Adesina had in particular made himself the cantor of a prosperous Africa by the exploitation of its rich lands by developing agriculture. He was able to capitalize on his achievements as a former Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria to impose his mark on the AfDB. The increase in the Bank's capital last October, from 93 billion dollars to 208 billion dollars, the replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF) or the 10 billion dollar facility launched to help African economies coping with the Covid pandemic are all operations he has carried out. If the recent internal crisis could have brushed aside these achievements, intense lobbying by Nigeria enabled the President of the AfDB to get out of business. “The rain is behind us. The clouds that darkened the horizon have dispersed, ”he split in his speech. “Affirmation of the power of Africans”? For some observers, "Adesina's second term risks being diminished in power, because of the handling of this affair", others rather think that its outcome illustrates "a kind of affirmation of the power of Africans" in the within the AfDB. “As I said, the westernization of the AfDB under the two leaderships that preceded Adesina was a necessary evil to consolidate its credibility as a financial institution. Afterwards you have to know how to set a limit and I think that's what just happened. This now allows Adesina to come back, the ball in the center, with greater control, “explains the analyst close to the AfDB. The AfDB, which today has more than 2,000 employees and 81 member countries, including 54 from Africa, is therefore writing a new chapter in its history at a time when the urgency of the economic reconstruction of the continent, broken in its tracks by the Covid-19 which should plunge it into its first recession in 25 years. The Nigerian leader, who will also have to meet several other challenges including the effective mobilization of resources, will probably do everything to end on a positive note like his two predecessors. “The leaders of the AfDB so far have all been men with very strong personalities. With few exceptions, they have all, depending on their context, managed to bring out the good in this institution which is absolutely necessary for the influence of Africa. There have been ups, there have been downs, sometimes strategic errors, we must now do everything so that beyond speeches, Africans grow in leadership, the real one”, analyzes the expert. The nature and quality of the narrative of the next five years will be determined by the achievements of Akinwumi Adesina, through whom Nigeria - the AfDB's largest shareholder who had expected to chair the institution since the 1990s - finally secured its decade at the helm of the emblematic pan-African multilateral financial institution.