Meet Akinwumi Adesina, AfDB President [Net Worth & Biography]

In this article, we talk about the AfDB President Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, his full biography, net worth, career pathway, awards, family, etc. Meet Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the president of AfDB.

Little was known about him by the general populace until his appointed by the then Goodluck Jonathan’s administration as the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development in 2010, who after his serving tenure as the Agricultural Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was voted in as the 8th President African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

He is the very first Nigerian to occupied such a lofty position and to serve as President of the African Bank Group.

By the Bank’s Board of Governors, on May 28, 2015, during its Annual Summits at the AfDB headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and he is expected to vacate the space on September 1, 2020, after the expiration of his 5-year tenure as constituted by the AfDB constitution. He precedes the former prime minister of Rwanda, Donald Kaberuka.

Ever since his public enactment, people’s keen interest had started growing into knowing whom Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina was, getting to know Akinwumi Adesina Biography, which is the sole purpose of this article.

Without further ado, let us take you directly to brief profile information on Akinwumi Adesina, with a person of his kind we need to know much about him, his Akinwumi Adesina biography likewise we should be well-informed about Akinwumi Adesina net worth Forbes.

Akinwumi Adesina Profile

Full Name:	Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina
Popularly Name:	Akinwumi Adesina
Date of Birth:	6 February 1960
Age:	64 Years
Place of Birth:	Ibadan, Oyo State
State of Origin:	Oyo State
Nationality:	Nigerian
Ethnicity:	Yoruba
Education:	University of Ife and Purdue University
Married to:	Grace Akinwumi
Children:	Rotimi and Segun Akinwumi
Net Worth:	$90 million

Biography Of Akinwumi Adesina

The little Mr. Africa President was born by a Nigerian farmer, whose domicile is in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, on the 6th of February, 1960.

He grew up from a low-class family who can afford to animate in a poor environment where there was poor environmental sanitation and inadequate public facilities.

His inborn interest in agriculture, as well as his purported results, are concomitant with each other. As an eminent development economist and agricultural development professional with years of international experience.

During his tenure as the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, he was able to put into practice and implement numerous agricultural policies, among which was the fertilizer reform policy and the innovative investment programs to expand opportunities for the private sector were bold, revealing and successful.

Adesina’s reputation to deliver targets against all present challenges has steadily earned him the moniker of risk-taker amid his aristocrats.

Little wonder he was able, during his university days, to found a Christian group called The African Student Fellowship.

Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina is bilingual by the reason of international exposure. Akinwumi Adesina wife name is Grace Akinwumi, he’s got married to Grace Akinwumi in 1984, and their union is blessed with two wonderful children, Rotimi and Segun.

Dr. Adesina was honored in 2012, in his home country, with the Commander of the Order of Niger (CON), which second highest National Honor, for his excellent service to his country and continent at large.

Akinwumi Adesina Early Life and Education

Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina started his education by attending the then available village school. Upon graduation, he proceeded into the then University of Ife to study Agricultural Economics and graduated with First Class Honors from the University in 1981. He was the first grandaunt to badge distinction away from the University of Ife.

He immediately pushed forward into the Purdue University in Indiana, the United State of America, for his master’s degree program in the same course of study, Agricultural Economics, briefly returned to Nigeria in 1984 for nuptial rites.

In 1988, he returned to the US for his postgraduate degree course, at Purdue University, Indiana, United State, where he won the Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis prize based on his thesis work.

Akinwumi Adesina Career Pathway

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina started his career as a Senior Scientist at Rockefeller Foundation immediately after his fellowship award program in 1988 as Associate Director and Regional Director for the Southern Africa Office, where he worked for over a decade.

He moved down to their African office in 1990, where he worked with the West African Rice Development Association (WARDA) in Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire, as their Principal Economist for a period of five years (1990 to 1995), and was the Southern African Area representative for the foundation for a period of four years (1999 to 2003).

While he was with the Rockefeller Foundation, he served also as one of the Technical Board of the Forum for African Women Educationalists Movement.

He later worked also with International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) as their Senior Economist and Social Science Coordinator from 1995 to 1999, as well as with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semiarid Tropics, as their Principal Economist from 1988 to 1990.

In 2003, he was made an Associate Director for Food Security till 2008, where he was made the Vice President (policy and partnerships) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) where he led several courageous policies and pioneering finance initiatives that leveraged over $4 billion in bank finance obligations in the direction of Africa’s agriculture sector.

Dr. Adesina had magnificently led one of the major and largest international efforts to leverage local bank finance for the agricultural sector and had worked with the President, Finance ministers, leaders of the commercial banking industry, and central bank governors across several African countries.

This led to his political appointment in 2010 by then the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, as part of the 17-team member for international support simulation for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

The success of his appointment makes Goodluck Jonathan Administration considered him for the ministerial appointment in 2010, as the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development for the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina is a globally respected economist, who has over 70 scholarly publications written, which were vast on agricultural policy, development, and African development issues, and served as the African Association of Agricultural Economists President, who also was part of the Editorial Board of some academic journals, including the International Journal of Agricultural Economists.

Dr. Adesina is the Board member and Nigeria’s Governor of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and is generally consulted by global development institutions like the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank, the Africa Union, and the World Economic Forum.

Akinwumi Adesina Honor/Award/Recognition

Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina had ever since his university days in the University of Ife had been till present, being awarded an award of excellence.

He had won to his catalog more than 50 prestigious awards of excellence, which are both local and internationally recognized. Below are the lists of some of the prestigious awards, honors, and recognition he received, according to the years it was given.

Dr. He was awarded the Outstanding Black Agricultural Economist award by the American Association of Agricultural Economists. He was a Distinguished Africanist Scholar at Cornell University, USA, in 2005.

Based on his scholastic work, Dr. Adesina was honored by Franklin and Marshall College, USA, with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2008, on the ground for his ground-breaking transformation, restructurings, and global leadership in enhancing the lives and livelihoods of the poor and women.

In 2007, Dr. Adesina was awarded the prestigious YARA Prize in Oslo, Norway, for his leadership in pioneering innovative approaches to improve access to agricultural inputs for African farmers. Net worth

In 2008, Purdue University, USA awarded him with the Distinguished Alumni Award

Obafemi Awolowo University (Former University of Ife), recognized him and awarded him as Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009, and in 2013, he was awarded as the Grand Commander of Great Ife.

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, in Borlaug, USA recognized his meritorious work done and he was awarded the CAST Award in 2010, based on his international leadership on agricultural science and technology

In 2013, he was recognized by Forbes International and awarded as the Forbes Africa Person of the Year.

In 2013, Dr. Adesina won the Forbes Africa Person of the Year award for his bold reforms in Nigeria’s agriculture sector, which have empowered more than eight million farmers across Nigeria to embrace agriculture as a business.

In 2013, he was been considered by the prominent Leadership Newspaper for the 2013 Public Servant of the Year award, based on his bold agricultural policy transformations, transparency, and public accountability while in office as the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In 2017, he won 2017 World Food Prize award

At Afe Babaola University, he was recognized with an Honorary Doctorate in 2018

Another international award within the continental shelf was given to him from Tunisia in 2019 as the Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit of Tunisia, and also was confined with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Star of Africa of Liberia award.

In January 2020, an Honorary Doctor of Science was awarded to Dr. Akinwumi Adesina by the Federal University Of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria.

Akinwumi Adesina Net worth

People are eager to know apart from Dr. Akinwumi Adesina’s biography, what is the present net worth of Akinwumi Adesina the Mr. development, according to Forbes rating.

Akinwumi Adesina’s current net worth is estimated to be $90 million. Considering that Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina’s previous year’s Net Worth was within $5 Million – $8 Million.

According to research carried out, with other information solicited from, structurally and otherwise. His present annual at AfDB is under review, as information about that is not available for the public as of now. It was gathered that he made most of his earnings from the political appointments he oversees.

Conclusion on the biography of Dr. Akinwumi Adesina

The life and biography of Dr. Akinwumi Adesina speak something a friend of mine put on his WhatsApp status that, “Hard work will never go unrewarded, if not today, definitely very soon.” As long as your heart finds pleasure in it, and you are passionate about it, never relent, give it your life, the reward for diligence and hard work is on its way.

He rose from obscurity, anonymity into becoming a voice and a force to reckon with in Africa as a continent, just because he was unwavering in his pursuit for excellence, making life better and giving people the right to live.

Read Also: Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala – Biography, Net Worth and Facts

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