Business Daily meets: Akinwumi Adesina
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2015, Akinwumi Adesina was elected President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), and since then he's become a symbol of optimism across the continent. How did he become known as Africa's "optimist-in-chief"?
In this edition of Business Daily, Dr Adesina tells Peter MacJob what has shaped him as an economist, his outlook for the continent and how Africa could determine the future of renewable energy and green minerals.
He says the international financial architecture should be more inclusive and favourable towards African economies, and the global north should compensate the continent for the adverse impacts of climate change on Africa.
(Picture: Dr Akinwunmi Adesina. Credit: Getty Images)
Presented and produced by Peter MacJob
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Love Janessa is the true crime podcast from the BBC World Service and CBC podcasts, |
| 0:06.6 | investigating the murky world of online romance scams. |
| 0:10.1 | She was trying to get me to send her money. |
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| 0:14.9 | Search for Love Janessa wherever you found this podcast. |
| 0:18.4 | You win their hearts, you win their wallet. |
| 0:23.2 | Hello, I'm Peter McJob. |
| 0:25.0 | Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:28.3 | Today on the program, is it time to reform the international financial architecture? |
| 0:33.8 | When the IMF issued the special drawing rights, out of $650 billion, Africa got $33 billion. |
| 0:40.4 | That's 4.5%. |
| 0:41.6 | For a whole continent, you have some countries in Europe that got more than the whole continent, |
| 0:45.5 | taken together, which is not fair. |
| 0:47.9 | That's the President of African Development Bank, the man they call Africa's Optimist-in-Chief, |
| 0:54.0 | with his relentless relentless positive slants |
| 0:55.7 | on the affairs of the continent. |
| 0:57.7 | There are some challenges, of course, in times of people not having access to electricity. |
| 1:01.3 | It's almost as if you look at the cup half full or half empty. |
| 1:05.3 | I look at it at half full. |
| 1:07.6 | We hear his views on the future of the African economy and also get an insight into his early life |
| 1:13.3 | and how it shaped where he is today. |
| 1:15.6 | So from that time, my father always called me, |
... |
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