Jemi Ekunkunbor
27 April 2008
Lagos — She exemplifies the saying that less is more. And even though she claims not to be trendy, she is a piece of art. Ms Arunmah Oteh, Vice President, Corporate Management of the African Development Bank (ADB) was the guest speaker at the recently held 2nd Nigerian Bankers Awards, exclusively Vanguard, where she spoke on "Banking, Financial Hub and Human Development Index."
Armed with a first class honour degree in Computer Science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Ms Oteh further beefed up her credentials with a masters degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
She joined the ADB in 1992 as a senor financial analyst, covering lending operations in west and north Africa. She moved to the treasury department a year later, where she held several positions in the capital and investment divisions. A firm believer in the empowerment of her gender, Ms Oteh has great vision for the African continent and indeed Nigeria. In 2001, she co-edited the book, "African Voices, African Visions" with Olugbenga Adeshida.
In this encounter in Lagos, the very articulate banker of repute bares her mind on a number of issues and reveals why she admires Nelson Mandela. Enjoy.
What does it take, as a woman, to head such an important department of the African Development Bank? I think it takes being a woman!
In my view, there are clearly a lot of attributes, especially our nurturing nature, that God has endowed women with and this attribute is particularly important in the work place; as you rise to a more senior position. You need to be someone who is able to coach and nurture people so that they can realise their full potential. For you to have risen to a senior position, you need to have been a team player and women tend to thrive in situations where there are team players.
I do think that for any organization to flourish, it is important to address issues of diversity and to make sure that both men and women are allowed an opportunity to contribute because they bring certain attributes that come with the way God has made us.
I think men are traditionally adventurous and focused (I'm not being stereotypical) in a very positive sense and women tend to be very focused on managing risks; very thorough and very detail-oriented in their approach. So, any organisation that recognises the importance of this, does end up benefitting significantly.
One of the things it does is that, it unleashes innovation because you do find people looking at issues from different perspective and that is one of the things I think that distinguishes our organisation. We have a president who comes from a country, Rwanda, where after the genocide years, the Rwandees have valued the role of women given the demographics of their society.
After the genocide, they have the highest number of women participating in their parliament and governance. So, when he joined our bank in 2005, he felt that clearly (I'm speaking in hindsight) that it will be important to ensure that we have much more women participating in decision-making positions; women who will be able to deliver.
I think the worst thing that you can have is a woman who is put in a position because she is a woman. I think people need to be put in a position because they can deliver and there are enough women in the world. You have seen that women have demonstrated their capacity as many times as they've been given the opportunity to do that.
We still live in a Patriarchal society where one would have thought that as a woman rises to decision-making level, she will begin to have problems. What is your view?
I actually do have a different view as an African and as a Nigerian. Our culture is one that respects the role of women. Think about the role of women in the household - their role tend to be the anchor for their husbands who is the leader of the house whether from a religious perspective or from a traditional perspective. In some societies, the women actually hold the purse strings even though it appears as if it is the man.
So, I think it's almost a misnomer to say that women don't get given the opportunity to realise their roles - and men who don't appreciate the women in their lives, whether it be their mothers or sisters or wives - when you look at a lot of successful men in our society, you should look at who their wives are.
It's because they have had extremely supportive wives who have provided them that anchor at home and provided an environment that allows them to flourish. In my own case, we had parents who thought that the sky was the limit for all of us and it didn't matter whether you were male or female.
You just had to excel and that has been my mantra in terms of developing myself and making sure I make the best of what I do. More recently in Nigeria, we've had leaders who have appreciated and understood the role of women and have given them the opportunity. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is an example of an outstanding woman who I would say is a total woman. She has a great family; four children. She came to the country and delivered as minister of finance.
She is currently MD at the World Bank and when you ask her what is the secret of her success, she will tell you it's her husband! So, she's had a supportive husband. So, I think in a society, you need to have people who nurture and support you and who allow you to achieve your potential, whether you are male or female. And, there are lessons to learn from how men are nurtured and how women are nurtured.
In Africa, it is a particularly important issue. I don't know what the statistics are for Nigeria but for Africa as a whole, 50% of Africans are women and I'm often quoted as saying if you are not empowering women as much as you are empowering men, it's like running on half tank.
It's like having a locomotive where half of it is working and half is not working. Can you imagine not leveraging half of your society? Even more important is the impact of investing in women.
When you invest in a girl child, you invest in a village because a woman who goes to school, is more likely to have her children go to school and therefore is more likely to have the children contribute to society. So, there is much more value focusing on women.
Does the ADB have any special product for women and children in Africa?
Gender issues are absolutely essential for us. It's one of the areas that we consider cross cutting, which means that every project and every programme that we invest in or support must have a gender dimension that is assessed. We have gender experts across the bank who review projects and ensure gender dimensions before they are sent to our board for approval.
They also look at projects during the execution to ensure that those gender dimensions are taken into account, whether they be infrastructure projects or purely gender focused projects. In the private sector, we have a number of initiatives that are targeted at women.
We have an initiative called 'the Growth of Women Enterprise', which is very focused at encouraging banks to be able to lend to enterprises that are led by women. We have provided funding in Kenya, and we provided partial credit risk guarantee which is, basically assuring banks that we would take the risk of a woman not repaying on the fund. We've offered this in Kenya, Cameroun..
. And the father of micro-finance, Mohammed Yunus, says that the repayment rate of women tend to be much higher than the repayment rate of other people. So clearly, it's an investment, not charity, and it's a well worth investment with high rate returns.
As a development bank, what impact has the ADB made in the Nigerian environment? think the starting point really is to have you understand the relationship between Nigeria and the African Development Bank. Nigeria is the largest shareholder of the ADB. The shareholders are 77 countries; 53 African countries and 24 non-African countries.
In addition, Nigeria established the Nigeria Trust Fund in 1976, which focuses on health in Africa and lends at terms that are much better than that of the ADB. Over the years, we've lent about $3.6 billion in Nigeria in several sectors; banking is about 35%. We give them credit so that they can unlend and that way, we can help develop the small and medium scale enterprises. Agriculture is an area that we focus on as well and then we have health, given the gender dimension of health. We have lent to education, as well. We have a number of water projects that we financed very recently.
So, it's a country where we have supported all the sectors that are important to economic and social development.
Since you co-edited the book, African Vision and African Voices, what changes would you say you have noticed, especially in your dear country, Nigeria?
The book was published in 2001. It came out of an idea of trying to encourage us to think about Africa 30 years on. So my co-editor, decided that we would have young Africans who, in 1996, were younger than 40 or at most 40 years of age to think of the kind of future that they would like; that they could create and their role in creating it. We had about 1,000 submissions which we reduced to 500. Then, we got referees who further looked at the 500 and reduced it to 100 and we chose the top 25.
And, all of them were really looking at an Africa that had a much more positive future than the Africa that they were seeing at that point in time. That book was published in 2001 for the Nordic African Institute. What is fascinating is that today, you can see that these are truly unique times with much more positive focus on Africa.
At the time the book was written, if you review the media, it was a time of war, famine and disease. Today, Africa is being looked at as the preferred investment destination, not just a charity destination. Nigeria itself has seen such tremendous success in such a short time. It's seen its micro-economic conditions consistently improve. We've seen the middle class being restored, with women participating more in decision making. Having said that, there is still quite a lot to do.
The human development indicators are still quite poor. Nigeria has one of the lowest human development indicators; even the gender development index which measures the inequality, in terms of achievement, between men and women, Nigeria ranks 139 out of 157 countries. The GDI captures inequalities between men and women. So, we have made progress but there is still scope for us to do much more. We've got capable women in all the arenas and in all the areas and sectors that we focus on.
When you are not working, what do you like to do?
I love to spend time with the people that I appreciate; family, sister and children are extremely important to me. I like to read a lot. I like reading biographies and history. I'm very fascinated by the history of Africa and trying to understand those distinct issues that affect us as a continent. I believe that history does help us to understand the future so, that's a primary focus.
I like the books that talk about freedom and about the independence era and, how Africa has performed.
I am a very strong Christian. I am a born again Christian and I would like to be able to spend much more time on my spiritual life. So, I do enjoy fellowship with other Christians.
I love to work out but I don't do it as often as I should. I enjoy music, particularly African music. One of the great things about living in different parts of Africa is the opportunity..., especially in French speaking countries, is the emphasis on African music and several other things. You know, life is so enjoyable; there's just so much. I love the theatre as well.
From the books that you have read, which one ersonality, in Africa, would you say you admire?
There are several. Obviously, the one everyone mentions and who I can't help but mention is Nelson Mandela.
He is an example in many ways. He is an example of what it means when you forgive people because you release yourself and you are the one who benefits most from forgiveness. So, that is something I take away from him. He is a leader who shows that you can let go. So, I think he is an example for our leaders about the importance of letting go and recognising that what you leave behind, you nurture more when you let go. There are other biographies that I have read but Nelson Mandela readily comes to mind.
Do you have any philosophy of life?h yes, there is nothing the Lord and I cannot do together.What dreams do you have?
I dream that our continent, Nigeria particularly, will be recognised as a true leader amongst its peers. I'm very glad that we are on the path to realising that dream and I do think that we need to focus on that path with much more sense of urgency and with much more unity of purpose, recognising that if we don't get the basics right first and as quickly as possible, that the boat won't leave the habour. This is the second chance that the Lord is giving us because He loves the country.
We, absolutely, must fix all the problems that we have. I am just so excited when I come home and see the energy and enthusiasm and, sometimes, I wonder how is it that people are able to do it despite the infrastructure difficulties that people face. I think we need to focus more on some of the reputational issues that we have.
That way, we can celebrate excellence like Vanguard has started to do. It is absolutely important and the role of the media is extremely important, responsible journalism. We need to up our game. I think there is still journalism that is not responsible in our country. So, I dream of a country that is safe, one that allows people, particularly young men and women to realise their full potential, one that continues to draw back its brains to come to serve, whether in the public sector or private sector.
You hold such an important office. how do you like to dress?
I love African wears. Whenever I have the opportunity to dress, I love African wears. I love gele. Unfortunately, I can't do them myself so I get technical assistance often. One of the things I love is just how African wears have evolved for our society that women are wearing them more often. Unfortunately, because I live in Tunisia now, I don't have the same fashion designers that we have here.
But you can't do that Monday to Friday?I can. It's just that I'm very simple in terms of style. I'm not trendy. I'm more particular about things that I feel comfortable in. I have a very hectic lifestyle so, I'm very particular about practical things that allow me to move from a regular work day to a cocktail and dinner. I like things that accentuate my body and make me look elegant. I think God has created us, women, as beautiful beings and we must make sure we dress up in ways that make us feel good so that we are beautiful both inside and outside.
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