Business
Oil price slump, slower growth, challenges for incoming African Development Bank head
Candidates for the top post, such Cape Verde Finance Minister Cristina Duarte, the first woman to run for the job, and Nigeria’s outgoing Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina, have said the African Development Bank needs to focus on promoting investment by businesses.
Duarte said in a May 8 interview that a stronger African private sector would encourage more value-added industries to flourish on the continent, while Adesina said last month that the bank should provide more access to funding for businesses.
South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized nation and second largest economy, is backing Thomas Sakala, a Zimbabwean national who has worked at the institution for 31 years. He said in an April 28 interview that governments must raise more domestic funding for infrastructure projects to boost growth.
Other candidates for the presidency are Ethiopian Finance Minister Sufian Ahmed; Chadian Finance Minister Kordje Bedoumra; Mali’s Birama Boubacar Sidibe, a vice president of the Islamic Development Bank; and Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Samura Kamara.
The bank’s members include 54 African states. The lender returned to Abidjan last year from Tunis to open its headquarters after an 11-year absence prompted by the outbreak of civil war in Ivory Coast in 2002.
Source: Bloomberg Business
