Dr. Akinwumi Adesina

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina is a globally renowned economist and development expert with close to 40 years of international experience working globally.

He graduated from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) with First Class Honors in Agricultural Economics in 1981, the first in the history of the university. He graduated with a master’s and PhD in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University, USA in 1988, where he won the Outstanding PhD Thesis Award.

Dr. Adesina served as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development from 2011–2015 under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. Under his tenure, Nigeria ended 40 years of corruption in the fertilizer sector by developing and implementing an innovative electronic wallet system which directly provided 15 million farmers with subsidized farm inputs at scale using their mobile phones.

Prior to his appointment as Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Adesina was Vice President for Policy and Partnerships with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Prior to this he was Associate Director at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, USA. He held senior economist leadership positions for a decade at three different international agricultural research institutions, including the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the West Africa Rice Development Association (now the Africa Rice Center) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics.

Dr. Adesina has built a distinguished career in global development. He is widely known for advocating transformative economic growth in Africa through innovation, infrastructure investment, and the empowerment of youth and women. He is highly respected for his leadership in addressing poverty and hunger across the continent, and his contributions to sustainable development are recognized globally.

Dr. Adesina served as the 8th President of the African Development Bank from 2015 to 2025. In 2020 Dr. Adesina was re-elected for a second term of office with 100% of the votes of shareholders from 81 countries around the world, the first ever in the history of the African Development Bank since its establishment in 1964.

Dr. Adesina transformed the African Development Bank, raising it to a global status and delivering impacts unparalleled in the history of the Bank since its establishment in 1964. Under Dr. Adesina’s leadership, the African Development Bank maintained its AAA global credit rating by all the major global credit rating agencies, remaining the only AAA-rated financial institution in Africa.

Dr. Adesina raised the general capital of the African Development Bank from $93 billion to $318 billion—the highest in the history of the Bank since 1964.