By Maxwell Nkansah
The African Development Bank will continue to make the continent proud as the only AAA-rated financial institution.
In tweets ahead of the bank’s Annual General Meeting for 2022 in Accra, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the President of the AfDB, said the bank would tell its story and not be defined by mischief makers, lies, and biases.
“Our achievements, exceptional management, good governance systems, and delivery of the Bank cannot be denied or misrepresented based on externally fabricated lies, distortions, misinformation, and a deliberately orchestrated campaign of calumny to attempt to tarnish our image,” he said.
The African Development Bank was ranked by Global Finance as the best multilateral financial institution in the world in 2021. The African Development Fund was ranked by CGD as the second-best in the world, ahead of all 28 concessional financing institutions in developed countries.
“We are an AAA-rated financial institution, the only one in Africa. We have consistently maintained our stellar AAA credit ratings from all major global credit rating agencies, who consistently praise our excellent risk management at the bank, “Dr. Adesina said.
He said the bank had excellent and robust management and governance system and had delivered great value for clients in Africa. “Over the past six years, through our High 5 programs, our work has impacted 335 million people. We deliver great value.
Based on rigorous risk assessments, our Board approved a crisis response facility of up to $10 billion. We launched a $3 billion COVID-19 social bond on the global capital markets, the highest ever US dollar-denominated social bond in world history, he said.
To address the food crisis caused by the Russian-Ukraine crisis, our Board of Directors approved a $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility last week, which will assist 20 million farmers in producing 38 million metric tons of food.
To help Africa adapt to climate change. Together with the Global Center on Adaptation and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, we are mobilizing $25 billion in support of Africa.
With the support of President Emmanuel Macron and the G-7, our Affirmative Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) is raising $5 billion for women’s businesses.
In 2021, we paid out $483 million to financial institutions to lend to women’s businesses. We will lend $500 million to women in 2022. Despite COVID-19 and the challenges of working from home, 97% of staff were pleased with the IT services support provided by the bank.
As we start the Bank’s Annual Meetings for 2022, I wish to commend the Board of Governors, Board of Directors, Management, and all the hard-working staff of the Bank for their relentless work. I thank all our 81 shareholder countries for their incredible confidence and support,” he added.
