Akinwumi Adesina is the President of the African Development Bank. He became the first Nigerian to be elected to the position in 2015, winning another term in 2020.
He was Nigeria’s former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. He was Vice President of Policy and Partnerships for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa before being appointed Minister in 2010.
Table of Content hide 1Akinwumi Adesina Biography 2Career 3African Development Bank 4Achievements 5Akinwumi Adesina Net worth 6Family 7Salary 8Where is Dr. Adesina from 9ConclusionAkinwumi Adesina Biography
Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina was born on February 6, 1960, in Oyo State. His father was an agriculturist; hence his exploits in the field are no surprise.
He attended a village school before attending the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics with first-class honors in 1981. He was the first student to receive this honor from the university. He returned to Nigeria in 1984 to get married before continuing his studies at Purdue University in Indiana, United States. He earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics in 1988 from Purdue, where his research was recognized with the Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis award.
Career
In 1988, he became an Assistant Principal Economist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semiarid Tropics, where he remained until 1990.
Adesina worked as a senior economist for the West African Rice Development Association (WARDA) in Bouaké, Ivory Coast, between 1990 and 1995.
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Later, in 1995, as a Coordinator for Social Sciences, IITA (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture).
Before being named Agriculture Minister by President Goodluck Jonathan, he served as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa’s (AGRA) Vice President of Policy and Partnerships. a position he held before moving to the African Development Bank.
The Foundation awarded him a senior scientist fellowship in 1988 after he worked at the Rockefeller Foundation. He served as the Foundation’s representative for southern Africa from 1999 to 2003. He served as an associate director for food security from 2003 to 2008.
Adesina served as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture from 2010 to 2015. He was named Forbes African Man of the Year for his efforts to restructure Nigeria’s agriculture. He increased supply chain transparency for fertilizer. He also promised to offer farmers free mobile phones, which proved too challenging. The absence of mobile networks in country areas was one of the causes.
He was chosen in 2010 as one of 17 world leaders to lead the Millennium Development Goals by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Ki-moon also chose Adesina to join the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement in September 2016.
Adesina received the 2017 World Food Prize.
African Development Bank
Adesina was chosen as the ad interim president of the African Development Bank on May 28, 2015. On September 1, 2015, he officially took office.
Adesina was re-elected to lead the Africa Development Bank for a second five-year term on August 27, 2020.
Achievements
Dr. Adesina was a fearless reformer who completely overhauled the country’s agriculture industry in just four years while serving as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture from 2011 to 2015. By creating and implementing a revolutionary electronic wallet system, which directly gives farmers discounted agriculture inputs at scale via their mobile phones, Nigeria was able to stop 40 years of corruption in the fertilizer sector during his administration.
This electronic wallet system touched 15 million farmers within the first four years of its inception, fundamentally altering their livelihoods. With Dr. Adesina in charge, the African Development Bank Group increased its general capital from $93 billion to a record-breaking $208 billion on October 31, 2019, marking the largest capital increase since its founding in 1964.
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The African Development Bank Group responded to the Covid-19 outbreak with audacity and speed. The leading development financing institution debuted a historic $3 billion Covid-19 Social Bond on April 3, 2020, followed by a $10 billion Crisis Response Facility. In 2013 and 2019, Dr. Adesina was named the Forbes Africa Person of the Year.
He received the World Food Prize, popular as the “Nobel Prize for Agriculture,” on October 19, 2017. He received the 2019 African of the Year award from the magazine’s million subscribers on February 29, 2020. Dr. Adesina was recognized on December 14, 2020, as one of the recipients of the 2020 Distinguished Fellowship Award by the Academy of Public Health, the parent organization of the West African Institute of Public Health, for his successful work in assisting Africa to lessen the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Federal University of Technology in Nigeria awarded the President an Honorary Doctorate on February 2, 2022, in honor of his international leadership in agriculture, food security, development financing, and good governance.
Akinwumi Adesina Net worth
Dr. Adesina’s net worth is estimated at $90million. His wealth is obtained from his multiple businesses.
Family
Adesina and his wife founded the African Student Fellowship, a Christian organization, while they were students at Purdue University. He and his wife Grace have a granddaughter named Neomi and two children named Rotimi and Segun.
Salary
Dr. Adesina is reported to earn about $163,089 as President of the African Development Bank Group.
Where is Dr. Adesina from
He is from Oyo State in the southwest region of Nigeria.
Conclusion
Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group, is frequently referred to as Africa’s Optimist-in-Chief and is widely praised for his inspirational leadership and zeal for Africa’s transformation.
Dr. Adeshina is a prolific writer who has written more than 70 academic works on agricultural development, government regulations, and African development issues.
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