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Times Heroes Award — The Daily Times
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Global Impact Award

Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, CON

Former President, African Development Bank

  1. Dr. Adesina is a globally renowned economist and development expert with close to 40 years of international experience working globally.
  2. He graduated from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) with First Class Honors in agricultural economics in 1981, the first in the history of the university. He graduated with a master’s and PhD in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University, USA in 1988, where he won the Outstanding PhD Thesis Award.
  3. Dr. Adesina served as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development from 2011-2015 under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. Under his tenure, Nigeria ended 40 years of corruption in the fertilizer sector by developing and implementing an innovative electronic wallet system which directly provided 15 million farmers with subsidized farm inputs at scale using their mobile phones.
  4. Prior to his appointment as Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Adesina was Vice President for Policy and Partnerships with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Prior to this he was Associate Director at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, USA. And prior to this he held senior economist leadership positions for a decade at three different international agricultural research institutions, including the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the West Africa Rice Development Association (now the Africa Rice Center) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
  5. Dr. Adesina has built a distinguished career in global development. He is widely known for advocating transformative economic growth in Africa through innovation, infrastructure investment, and the empowerment of youth and women. He is highly respected for his leadership in addressing poverty and hunger across the continent, and his contributions to sustainable development are recognized globally.
  6. Dr. Adesina was first elected as the 8th President of the African Development Bank from 2015 to 2025. In 2020 Dr. Adesina was re-elected for a second term of office with 100% of the votes of shareholders from 81 countries around the world, the first ever in the history of the African Development Bank since its establishment in 1964.
  7. Dr. Adesina transformed the African Development Bank raising it to a global status and delivered impacts unparalleled in the history of the Bank since its establishment in 1964.
  8. Dr. Adesina raised the general capital of the African Development Bank from $93 billion to $318 billion—the highest in the history of the Bank since 1964.
  9. Under Dr. Adesina’s leadership, the African Development Bank maintained its AAA global credit rating by all the major global credit rating agencies, remaining the only AAA-rated financial institution in Africa.
  10. Dr. Adesina launched in 2015 a bold strategy to transform the lives of Africans called the High 5s: to Light Up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Integrate Africa; Industrialize Africa; and improve the quality of life of the people of Africa. The High5s strategy transformed the lives more than 565 million people across Africa.
  11. Dr. Adesina’s astute leadership raised the status of the African Development Bank to the global level. Under his leadership the African Development Bank’s sovereign portfolio was ranked as the world’s most transparent financial institution by Publish What You Fund.
  12. Under Dr. Adesina’s leadership the African Development Bank was repeatedly named as the Best Multilateral Financial Institution in the world by Global Finance Magazine.
  13. Dr. Adesina has been widely recognized around the world.
  14. Dr. Adesina received the World Food Prize in 2017, widely known as the “Nobel Prize for Agriculture”.
  15. Dr. Adesina was awarded the global SunHak Peace Prize in 2019 for his leadership in improving food security and good governance in Africa.
  16. Dr. Adesina was awarded twice the Forbes Africa Person of the Year in 2013 and 2019.
  17. Dr. Adesina was appointed by the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, as one of 17 world leaders to galvanize international support for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
  18. In 2019, the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres appointed Dr. Adesina as one of the 23 global leaders to help end hunger and malnutrition.
  19. Dr. Adesina was awarded the "African of the Decade" in 2024 by the All-Africa Business Leaders Awards for transformative 10-year tenure as President of the African Development Bank Group and his significant contributions to the Africa’s development.
  20. The United States’s Corporate Council on Africa awarded him its prestigious Distinguished Economic Leader Award 2025 in recognition of his leadership in transforming Africa's development.
  21. Dr. Adesina received the prestigious Nnamdi Azikwe’s Prize in Public Service for his bold anti-corruption and good governance reforms in the public service as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and for his transformative leadership at the African Development Bank.
  22. Dr. Adesina was awarded the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo Leadership Prize in 2024 for outstanding leadership in transforming lives of people across Africa.
  23. Dr. Adesina has been awarded the Highest National Honors of more than 12 African countries, including Kenya, Senegal, Cameroon, Madagascar, Togo, Liberia, Niger, Gambia, Djibouti, Tunisia, Cabo Verde and Gabon.
  24. A prolific writer, Dr. Adesina has authored over 70 scholarly publications on policy, agricultural development, and African development issues.
  25. He has received 18 honorary doctoral awards globally, including from Franklin and Marshall College (USA); Purdue University (USA); Duke University (USA); Makerere University (Uganda); Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia); the American University of Nigeria; Obafemi Awolowo University; Adekunle Ajasin University; Afe Babalola University; the Federal University of Technology, Akure; Bowen University; Veritas University; Bayero University; the Nigerian Defence Academy; the National Open University of Nigeria; the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania); the University of Alberta (Canada); and Michigan State University (USA).
  26. In 2017, Dr. Adesina was ranked in the top 15 of the 100 most influential global leaders in multilateral development organizations.
  27. Dr. Adesina has been consistently ranked among the 100 Most Influential Africans by the New Africa Magazine.
  28. The leading reputation management firm, Reputation Poll International, listed Dr. Adesina among the 100 most reputable people in the world.