The President of the African Development Bank has urged African nations to stop exporting raw materials, describing it as a key step in tackling poverty and underdevelopment on the continent.
In a post shared on his official X handle, the AfDB president declared that Africa must stop being a supplier of unprocessed commodities and instead become a producer of value-added goods. “The export of raw materials is the door to poverty. The export of value-added products is the highway to wealth. And Africa is tired of being poor,” he said.
Despite Africa being rich in natural resources, the continent contributes less than 2 per cent to global manufacturing, according to data from the Office of the US Trade Representative and other multilateral bodies. Its share of global trade also remains below 3 per cent.
Efforts to change this reality are underway, with initiatives like the African Continental Free Trade Area pushing for greater intra-African trade, expanded manufacturing capacity, and more value addition across industries. Adesina has been a vocal supporter of such initiatives, especially those focused on agro-industrialization, energy expansion, and infrastructure development to unlock Africa’s economic potential.
In a related development, Adesina recently criticized the International Monetary Fund’s allocation of Special Drawing Rights, pointing out that Africa received only $33 billion—just 4.5 per cent of the $650 billion issued globally—despite facing some of the harshest economic setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic.
To address this imbalance, he revealed that the AfDB and the African Union are leading efforts to rechannel unused SDRs from wealthier countries to African economies. A new financing framework, co-developed with the Inter-American Development Bank and supported by the AfDB’s AAA credit rating, has now been approved by the IMF Board, offering a fresh pathway for Africa to access much-needed financial resources.
