“ AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK LOOKS FORWARD TO WORKING WITH INTERNATIONAL SOLAR ALLIANCE”
In a conversation with Diplomatist, President Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, highlights the significance of the High 5s, his comparative analysis of the financial situation in the African countries and how the bank is seeking inspiration from Asian countries in energy, industry and agricultural transformation policies.
What are the‘ High 5s’ of the African Development Bank?
First, I am delighted to contribute to this Special Edition of the Diplomatist Magazine, on the auspicious occasion of the COMESA Summit. This region is very important to the African Development Bank and is the largest of the eight Regional Economic Communities, bringing together 19 Member States.
The African Development Bank concentrates on raising, leveraging and crowding in financial resources according to the High 5s strategy: Light up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialise Africa; Integrate Africa; and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa. I was interested to see a recent independent analysis by the United Nations Development Programme which showed that the High 5s cover 90 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals and 90 percent of the African Union’ s Agenda 2063. This means that the High 5s are accelerators of Africa ' s economic development.
You can’ t do anything in the dark. Very little business, education, healthcare or entertainment can be done without some form of power. 645 million people do not have
access to electricity. This is not acceptable. The Bank has committed to invest about $ 12 billion between 2016 and 2020 and we expect to leverage another $ 45-50 billion in co-financing for energy projects in Africa during the same period. And our African sun must do more than just nourish crops; it must heat or cool our homes and help to transport our goods. We must light up and power Africa now.
With a shift in demographic trends – population growth and rapid urbanisation – the food and agribusiness industry in Africa is projected to grow to $ 1 trillion by 2030, with new and impatient African urban markets demanding a generous variety of high-quality food products. The African continent has plenty of land for extra production, with over 65 percent of all the uncultivated arable land left in the world. Africa will, therefore, be able to feed its own 2 billion people, as well as the other 7 billion on this planet.
And it will be keeping the added value in growing and processing its food, for we cannot keep paying $ 35 billion a year, expected to further rise to $ 110 billion a year by 2025, for the crippling luxury of importing food that we should be growing, processing, and consuming ourselves.
10 • COMESA • 2018