African continent's leading financial institution will avert food crisis

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved a $1.5 billion Emergency Food Production Facility to assist in addressing the global food crisis caused by the Russian-Ukraine conflict.

The funds will assist 20 million African farmers in producing an additional 38 million metric tonnes of food, addressing the continent's growing fears of starvation and food insecurity.

All major global credit rating agencies have consistently maintained the Bank's AAA credit rating, making it Africa's only AAA-rated financial institution.

The emergency food production package comes as the African Development Bank gathers in Accra, Ghana, this week for its 2022 Annual Meetings.

Delegates will review the Bank's projects, which have impacted the lives of 335 million Africans over the last five years, while also looking ahead to new challenges and opportunities.

Overcoming Africa's challenges entails going back to Covid-19. Early in the pandemic, the Bank provided African countries with a crisis response facility of up to $10 billion to assist in overcoming its social and economic consequences.

It also issued a $3 billion Covid-19 social bond on global capital markets, the largest ever US dollar-denominated social bond at the time.

According to Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, president of the Bank, this helped provide social protection to approximately 30 million vulnerable people.

Adesina said: “Our rapid Covid-19 response facility helped stabilize African economies. It helped train 130,000 health workers, and provided advisory support for 300,000 small and medium-sized businesses.”

Discussions at the African Development Bank Group Annual Meetings in Accra will also cover a variety of topics, including climate change, for which the Bank is mobilising $25 billion in collaboration with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and the Global Center on Adaptation.

The meetings will also include a substantive discussion about increasing financial assistance to women entrepreneurs. One of the Bank's flagship programmes is Affirmative Action for Women in Africa.

Adesina said: “With the support of President Emmanuel Macron and G-7, our Affirmative Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) is raising $5 billion for women businesses. In 2021, we paid out $483 million to financial institutions to lend to women businesses. We will lend $500 million for women in 2022.”

Adesina dismissed recent critics of the Bank's management by emphasising these achievements.

He cites an independent survey conducted by a global human resources firm that found high levels of satisfaction (85 percent) among bank employees.

The Bank head says: “Our achievements, exceptional management, good governance systems, and delivery of the Bank cannot be denied or misrepresented based on externally fabricated untruths, distortions, misinformation, and a deliberately orchestrated campaign of calumny to attempt to tarnish our image.“We will tell our story. We will not be defined by mischief-makers, lies and biases. We are proudly African.”

The African Development Bank is supported by 81 stakeholder countries. The Annual Meetings in Accra this week are expected to draw 3,000 people.