Billions of dollars were provided by the Bank Group and its development partners to battle food insecurity, address climate change, promote renewable energies, and improve infrastructure.
The Bank Group held flagship annual events: the Africa Investment Forum Market Days in Marrakesh, Morocco; the Annual Meetings in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, and the African Economic Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
A high-level delegation attended COP28 in Dubai, UAE, demonstrating the Bank Group's commitment to respond to the challenges of climate change which are hitting the African continent harder than anywhere else in the world.
So, let us look back on an eventful 2023 for the African Development Bank Group.
January
The year began with the Dakar 2 Summit on Food in Africa under the theme "Feed Africa: Food Sovereignty and Resilience".
More than 1,000 delegates took part in the event jointly organised by the African Development Bank, the African Union and Senegal. Among participants were 34 Heads of State and Government, heads of international organizations, and representatives of farmers, the private sector and development partners.
African Heads of State agreed on Food and Agriculture Compacts in their respective countries. Development partners committed $30 billion for the implementation of these Compacts over the next five years. By the end of 2023, this amount had grown to $72 billion.
In Dakar, the African Development Bank Group announced that it would devote $10 billion over five years to increase Africa's ability to end hunger on the continent and become the leading provider of food for the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative approved more than $1.2 billion for women-led businesses in 32 countries, via 96 financial institutions across Africa. AFAWA is recruiting a second cohort for its Women's Entrepreneurship Enablers programme. This provides grants of up to $250,000 to organizations helping forge African women-led businesses on the continent. The AFAWA Finance Series held workshops in six countries, making the case to banks and financial institutions to provide financial services to women-led businesses. AFAWA has established a guarantee facility that de-risks the women's market and increases the capacities of financial institutions to lend to women business leaders. AFAWA plans to unlock up to $5 billion in loans to women by 2026.
The 2nd Dakar Financing Summit for Africa's Infrastructure Development also took place in the Senegalese capital. Its agenda included 69 infrastructure projects with a total value of $160 billion. The summit focused on how to carry these projects forward to 2030.
February
At the 36th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, the African Development Bank presented an authoritative report noting that African economies remained resilient, with stable prospects in 2023-2024 despite the tightening of global financial conditions.
Africa's Macroeconomic Performance and Outlook 2023, launched in January, detailed that average GDP in Africa was likely to stabilize at 4% over the following two years, against 3.8% in 2022.
The report said that the continent could benefit from strong demand for its raw materials as countries sought alternatives for food and energy in response to the disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine.
The Global Center on Adaptation, the African Development Bank and the Wangari Maathai Institute hosted a regional forum on the future of resilient food systems in Africa. This forum provided training to build the capacity of East African stakeholders to design and implement solutions to improve food security and climate resilience, while also facilitating knowledge sharing among farmers on how to scale up the use of climate-aware digital advisory services.
The African Water Facility, hosted and administered by the ADB, presented an overview of its new project financing window, the African Urban Sanitation Investment Fund (AUSIF).
March
The Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) encouraged Africa's youth to stimulate innovation in climate adaptation.
At the 3rd Gobeshona Global Conference, the AAAP brought together candidates from its YouthADAPT programme to share experiences and strategies to develop youth-led adaptation approaches.
The African Development Bank Group provided €48.82 million in funding to the Yeleen Project for the development of solar power plants in Burkina Faso.
April
The Agropole Project, a joint initiative between the African Development Bank and the Government of Togo, took centre stage at the National Forum of Agricultural Producers, held in Kara, in northern Togo. Hundreds of farmers and President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé attended the event. Yeleen is a key part of the $20-billion Desert-to-Power initiative.
President Akinwumi Adesina led an African Development Bank Group delegation to Japan to present investment opportunities on the continent. Adesina held a series of meetings with senior Japanese government officials, including Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki, Deputy Finance Minister Masato Kanda and Director General of the Ministry of Finance, Atsushi Mimura.
May
The African Development Bank Group held its Annual Meetings in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, where Dr Adesina welcomed the heads of intergovernmental organizations and African development finance institutions. The different parties shared a message of collaboration to address the continent's main development challenges.
June
President Adesina took part in high-level discussions on restructuring the international financial system at the Paris Summit for a New Global Financial Pact. This included a round-table discussion on debt and the channelling of IMF special drawing rights. The link between development and climate transition was highlighted as well as the need to massively mobilize financing for a green revolution in Africa. Only this can meet investment needs in renewable energy.
July
The Bank Group focused its attention on Zambia and its recovery from a debt crisis with a series of meetings in the capital Lusaka.
"The starting point is to make sure that the debt treatment works, and that Zambia does not fall back into a debt crisis," said Dr Adesina, who led the Bank delegation to Lusaka.
The meetings were attended by representatives of the United Nations, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and foreign governments including the United States and the United Kingdom, and private sector.
August
The President of Liberia, George Manneh Weah, applauded the Bank Group's "significant" support for promoting his country's growth and development. In a message delivered by Willie Mai King, the Liberian Ambassador to Côte d'Ivoire, President Weah thanked the Bank Group for its crucial support to Liberia, including the financing of the Harper-Fish Town highway.
September
The African Development Bank Group and Eritrea strengthened their partnership to support the country's growth and place it on a more sustainable development trajectory in the coming years. The President of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, thanked Dr Adesina for the strategic role the institution plays in improving the living conditions of the Eritrean people.
The African Development Bank Group's Chief Economist Kevin Urama undertook an official visit to Scandinavia - notably, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden - and Ireland. He noted that Africa's demographic boom - expected to make it the world's most populous region by the end of the century, with up to 3.4 billion people - offered huge business and investment opportunities for the rest of the world. and called on entrepreneurs make Africa their business and investment destination.
October
In an exclusive interview with the UK's Guardian newspaper, President Adesina highlighted the favourable prospects of Africa, a continent with the workforce of the future and best investment opportunities.
"Africa holds the future workforce for the ageing economies of the west, according to one of the continent's leading financial figures, who also said it was time to ditch the myths around corruption and risk," the Guardian wrote of his remarks.
November
The 2023 edition of the Africa Investment Forum took place in Morocco. The Forum raised $34.82 billion in investment interest on structural projects in Africa. Entrepreneurs called for more support to develop manufacturing industry, the foundation of "Made in Africa", while Herbert Mensah, President of Rugby Africa, made a compelling call: "Invest in African sport and you'll get a good return on investment!".
The African Economic Conference took place in Ethiopia and heard experts say Africa has the potential to move directly to the fourth industrial revolution with the right skills and policies.
Dr Adesina and the Managing Director of the charity The Prince's Trust International met in London, United Kingdom, to explore strategic partnerships to boost youth employment and develop human capital and large-scale entrepreneurship in Africa.
December
The African Development Bank was a prominent participant in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) held in Dubai, UAE.
France, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and Brazil (which will hold the next G20 presidency) along with the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and African and Latin American countries, the Asian Development Bank gave strong support to the proposal by the African Development Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to channel IMF special drawing rights (SDRs) through multilateral development banks.
The Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa (AGIA) received an initial commitment of $175 billion from African and global institutions, Germany, France and Japan and philanthropic organizations. The African Development Bank, the African Union Commission, Africa50 and global partners, agreed to unlock up to $10 billion in private capital for green infrastructure projects to accelerate Africa's transition to net zero CO2 emissions.
Africa's efforts to build a resilient and self-reliant pharmaceutical industry advanced significantly as the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation and the Rwandan Government signed the host country agreement paving the way for the Foundation's to become operational.
The President of the African Development Bank Group, Akinwumi Adesina during signing of the host agreement of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation in Rwanda.
