President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina has been named 2022 Man of the Year (Africa) by Exclusive Men of the Year (EMY).

In a statement issued by the Communication and External Relations Department of the AfDB on Thursday, Mr Adesina was named for his visionary leadership as the president of the bank.

He was also named for his outstanding contributions to Africa during his period as agriculture minister of Nigeria.

The prize was awarded to the AfDB president on October 1, in Accra, Ghana.

AfDB Ghana Country Manager, Eyerusalem Fasika, however, received the award on Mr Adesina’s behalf.

He thanked the EMY team and all the partners for the recognition.

The EMY awards are organised by the EMY Africa Magazine, “a premier men’s magazine that addresses people, places, ideas and issues that shape men’s personal expressions, development and experiences”.

In announcing the Man of The Year (Africa) award, EMY recognised Mr Adesina’s contributions as “a bold reformer” and “globally renowned development economist and agriculture development expert, with more than 30 years of experience in development”.

Announcing the prize, United Nations Resident Coordinator in Ghana, Charles Abani said: “When we look around, we see different people making their contributions to society. 

“We know Africa is going to be Africa if we harness our agricultural value and go up the value chain. 

“One man has stood up for his inspiration, for his motivation and for making us believe with a vision and strategy that we can achieve this,” Abani said.

Since 2016, EMY Africa has celebrated the best in men’s achievements across local industry, community, culture and public service. 

Past recipients of the EMY Africa Awards had been inspirational men with accomplished or promising careers who had made important contributions to life in African communities.  

As Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria from 2011 to 2015, Adesina was credited with turning the agriculture sector of Nigeria around within four years. 

Under his tenure, Nigeria ended 40 years of corruption in the fertiliser sector.

He did this by developing and implementing an innovative electronic wallet system, which directly provided farmers with subsidised farm inputs at scale using their mobile phones.

Within the first four years of its inauguration, this electronic wallet system reached 15 million farmers.

With Adesina at the helm, the AfDB Group achieved the highest capital increase since its establishment in 1964.  

On October 30, 2019, shareholders from 80 member countries raised the general capital from 93 billion dollars to 208 billion dollars.

He has also led other achievements such as the bank’s bold and swift response to the COVID-19 pandemic with the inauguration of a landmark three billion dollars COVID-19 Social Bond.

This was followed by a Crisis Response Facility of up to 10 billion dollars. 

In May, the bank group’s Board of Directors approved a 1.5-billion-dollar Emergency Food Production Facility to help tackle the global food crisis sparked by the Russian-Ukraine conflict. 

The funds would help 20 million African farmers produce an extra 38 million metric tons of food. 

(NAN)