According to your profile, you have supported some economic empowerment projects in Africa. Can you talk about that briefly?

I sometimes call myself a financial plumber. My job is to get financing to where it is needed, whether it is a sovereign, whether it’s the private sector, whether it’s a small enterprise. So, some of the projects I’ve been proudest of have included the Making Finance Work for Africa Initiative, a joint project between the World Bank and the African Development Bank, where we said, to get finance working in Africa, we have to look at the stability of our financial systems. We looked at long-term financial systems, housing, pensions, insurance. We also have to look at the access side of financial systems, the retail side, micro finance, banking initiatives, all of the financial innovations.

Because of the work, payment systems across the continent were improved. It also reduced banking licensing regulations. Today, when you say a ‘foreign bank’, it’s not a bank from outside Africa, in most cases, it’s a bank from Nigeria, it’s a bank from South Africa, it’s a bank from Kenya. I’m very proud of that work.

There’s been additional work that we’ve done on migrant labour remittances, and we did a lot of research papers on that. But there are some projects I worked on which were challenging, but I learned a tremendous amount, when Sudan first signed a peace agreement with South Sudan, soon after the separation and creation of two states, I was involved in the currency exchange programme there. I worked in Somalia on getting investment going into that country, long before they went through the process of being established with a new government. Right across the continent, my private sector and financial sector work from Ethiopia to Mozambique, from Zambia to Malawi to Zimbabwe, has always involved one aspect of let’s think long term, let’s build a stable system that’s sustainable, let’s talk about access to make sure that we’re getting as many people access and then ultimately, let’s make sure it’s having an impact on creating jobs for the private sector.

You are currently the Vice President for Project Performance, Review and Strategic Planning at the World Bank. What will be your strategy to stabilise the volatile African economy if elected as president of the AfDB?

I have taken leave from the World Bank to actively campaign for the presidency of the African Development Bank. I have gone through a rigorous selection process within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region that involved seven candidates. And as we were going through that rigorous process, we had interviews with finance ministers. Our applications were discussed by foreign affairs ministers and the SADC heads of state. Part of the reason, rather a major part of the reason that I got the SADC endorsement and subsequently the Common Market for Eastern and Southern African (COMESA) endorsement, is because of the ideas that I have been debating with heads of states and governments about how we address the very same thing that you’ve mentioned.

And over the last nine months, I’ve gone back to governments, private sector, young people, about how we make sure that our continent is growing at a significant pace and scale. That work starts with investing in the AfDB, making sure we are able to tackle three critical elements. Number one is about getting financing. A lot of the challenges we face, it’s not for the lack of ideas about what we need to do, it’s just that many of our projects are simply too small that after you’ve completed the project, you have to go back and ask for additional financing. I want to use the experience I’ve garnered at the World Bank in raising significantly higher resources to make sure that AfDB’s balance sheet and lending volumes increase. The second thing I want to do is to make sure that all of the systems and processes and procedures that we have are updated significantly to make them much more efficient.

In this environment, where the global environment has changed so much, we can’t afford to wait 18 months, 12 months, even six months, for some decisions. That’s what I want to invest in. I have been a firm believer that on the continent, we have enough young people who know what needs to be done, which is why, something I also want to add is establishing a youth council so that they have direct access to the leadership of the African Development Bank, telling us what they want to do, telling us what they’re currently doing, and telling us how we can support them so we can provide that support, get out of the way and let our Young people thrive.

The Donald Trump administration has cut some funding that comes to the AfDB. How do you think the bank can meet its responsibility with reduced support?

One thing I’ve always said about this environment where we have seen financing from the United States decline, my starting point is one of gratitude for what we’ve already received. I grew up in Zambia that was devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. My family was saved because the PEPFAR programme, funded by the USA made a huge difference. So, the first part is always one of gratitude, because other people’s taxpayer resources are not something to take for granted.

The second part is to acknowledge that the pace at which these decisions have been made, has been disruptive, but an important wake up call, a wake-up call for us to accelerate the process of diversifying our funding, a wake-up call for us to accelerate the process of developing continental trade on our continent, because that’s the one way that’s the most sustainable way to make sure that we are more dependent on our neighbors and that we don’t find ourselves in these situations where some of the basic elements of development, education, health, are not subject to decisions that we have no control over.

The final point I want to make is that as important as the decline in financing is, it’s not new. We’ve seen concessional finance decline over time, and therefore it is even more imperative for us to use the balance sheet of the African Development Bank in a way that attracts private sector financing, that does so in a way that stretches the balance sheet of the African Development Bank, even as we innovate and find alternative sources of financing in this environment.

The decision has an impact on the continent, there is no doubt. It’s a decision I respect because it’s taxpayers’ money, but also it’s a decision that’s a wake-up call for us to diversify our sources of financing and accelerate the process of trading amongst ourselves, because that way, we protect our economies in a more sustainable manner.

Energy drives the economy of Africa, but many African communities lack access. How can this be addressed?

I have family and relatives in rural Zambia who have never seen a light bulb in their house, and I think it’s unacceptable that in 2025, we have 600 million Africans who don’t have access to power. As much as I welcome the M300 initiative that the African Development Bank and the World Bank have put together as a good example of how you can accelerate development, it’s still not enough. Therefore, under my presidency, energy is going to be a top priority at the AfDB.

I want to focus on access, increasing access, and not talk about transitions, but energy mix. Africa is blessed with a diverse range of energy sources, from hydro to thermal, if we harness all of that, we have enough power to power the continent and export, but we must do the work, and our work is about connectivity and scale. We need to identify and work with all of the energy pools. AfDB is selective about which projects we are financing. I want us to finance the interconnector between the Southern African Power Pool and the East African Power Pool. I want to finance the project between the East African Power Pool and the North African Power Pool so that we create one market on the continent.

The second thing we need to do is to make sure that we are scaling up the size of every single energy project, because we don’t have the time to sort of do it piecemeal. This requires a different approach to dealing with energy on the continent. It requires the AfDB to have one team that focuses on knowledge about energy, so that wherever you are in the world, if you want to invest in Africa, you can come to this team, and we can tell you where the deals are. We can tell you where the sources are. Secondly, the same team has part of it focused on structuring financial transactions, that we are looking at our balance sheet, we’re using guarantees, we’re using mezzanine financing structures to bring in as much private sector financing so that instead of doing $100 million deal, we’re doing a $300 million deal, we’re doing a $700 million deal. Each deal must be leveraged with private sector investment. Thirdly, it’s about working with governments, making sure that when they have ideas and proposals, they’re coming to one place to work with other governments to discuss and put to pitch their ideas with financiers across the table, in a deal room arrangement where people can learn from the mistakes of others that have been done. People can leverage partnerships that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do.

In a nutshell, my goal is to make sure we are using a country like Nigeria’s experience, the skills that are here, the financial engineering skills that are here. That capacity is there. We need to make sure we’re leveraging that capacity. This approach I have described to you is an approach that we must apply to some of the bigger challenges we have in agriculture, for example. It makes no sense to me that we have 60 per cent of the world’s arable land and we are only feeding ourselves with 15 per cent and even worse. There are 200 million people who are exposed to hunger today on this continent and we are only irrigating five per cent of our land. Asia is at 40 per cent. Our yields are 50 per cent lower than the yields elsewhere. In a crisis like the one we had in Ukraine, we are struggling to find wheat to feed our continent. It’s not a lack of ideas, because on this continent, on any given day, you name a project, you will find a world-class practice. It’s a lack of scale, it’s a lack of pace, and it’s the job of AfDB to find projects and proposals on the continent. I will not be shy about it. If I find an initiative in Nigeria that is scaling up the production of rice, I will sell the idea and I will, of course, always give Nigeria credit. But it’s about scale. You cannot get scale if you have a small balance sheet. You’ve got to grow the balance sheet, finance, scale, partner with others and bring them to the table.

AfDB has supported impactful agricultural projects. Will you continue them or introduce new ones?

I am not one to take on a new team and do away with everything the previous leader did simply to say that I’m new and I’m different. My job is to make sure that I am looking at all of the programmes we have at AfDB and those that are having impacts. I will champion the work that Adesina has done on those programmes. I am very reluctant to do away with even programmes that are not working, because the cost of starting a new programme can be higher than fixing an existing programme.

When it comes to agriculture, where AfDB has a substantial portfolio, my goal is to apply the same method I described earlier, look at what we have, identify what’s working and scale it up. If there is something missing in an ecosystem, we will try to fix it. We will look at programmes which are not working and have an honest conversation about shutting them down, because if we keep doing the same thing when we all know it’s not working, we are wasting resources. For our traditional sectors, like agriculture, mining, and energy, that’s what I want to do. For the new sectors, such as filming, the creative industries, which have the capacity to generate jobs, I want us to be comfortable investing in these sectors, clear-eyed that our goal is to provide the infrastructure that allows the private sector to thrive.

Many African countries are highly indebted to international financial organizations. How can the AfDB ease this burden?

I think the AfDB has a role in the debt situation. We must never shy away from some of the biggest challenges on the continent, be they climate, be they debt, be they employment, health or education. We must never shy away from having these conversations. We are AfDB, owned by Africans to serve Africans. What is important is how we engage. So, on debt, clearly, the IMF, the World Bank, the Paris Club, have been involved in these discussions. I want to make sure that I’m using AfDB’s voice to represent, to partner, to work with African governments who are struggling with debt. This may mean using our voice, our knowledge, to speak the uncomfortable truth about what’s working and what’s not working. We have the common framework in place. It is very uncommon, and I welcome the recent initiatives to have a global debt roundtable to see ways in which that can be accelerated. We will support that. It’s about joining global collective efforts and putting our shoulders together to fix that problem.

I also want to make it clear that the fastest way to get out of debt as a sovereign or as an individual is to increase your income. Get another job that pays you well, and go into the private sector if you can. Governments are no different. We must make sure that the African government bank is helping governments increase their revenue as best they can and targeting those sectors that actually generate revenue. This means that at the same time, we’re generating revenue and working on domestic resource mobilisation efforts. We are plugging as many holes in these illicit financial flows so that collectively, we’re doing everything we can to improve the fiscal position of our governments. Unless we do that, growth will be constrained.