By Eric Ojo
President of African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has been honored with the distinguished Ronald Harmon Brown Award of International Distinction.
The award which was bestowed on Dr. Adesina by the National Bar Association (NBA) in the United States, is named in honor of Ron Brown, the first African American to Chair a major U.S. political party, and the first African American to be appointed Commerce Secretary.
Other award recipients include the NBA’s chief policy officer, Alicia Hughes, who received the organization’s highest award; Hajia Alima Mahama, Ambassador of the Republic of Ghana to the United States; and Kamil Olufowobi, CEO, Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD).
The black-tie gala was attended by over 800 black lawyers, including 20 past NBA Presidents, and several elected officials. A lively fire side chat between NBA President Carlos Moore and the 91-year-old Fred Gray, legendary chief counsel for the civil rights protest movement, set the stage for the night.
Moore cited Adesina’s transformative role as head of the AfDB, and as a former Nigerian Minister of Agriculture.
Receiving the award, the bank chief lauded the late Ron Brown as an inspirational figure who believed that “every idea was an impossibility, until it is born”.
As President of the AfDB, Dr. Adesina said he and his team set out to accomplish the seemingly impossible. This, according to him, included the largest ever general capital increase in the bank’s history, from $93 billion to $208 billion; a transformative High5 development strategy that has impacted 335 million Africans in six years; and the creation of the Africa Investment Forum, the continent’s premier investment marketplace, which has attracted $110 billion in investment interests in Africa, over three years.
In 2021, the Bank was ranked the best multilateral financial institution in the world. In 2022, the AfDB was ranked the most transparent institution in the world, by Publish What You Fund, in terms of its sovereign operations.
Adesina, who dedicated the award to his wife Grace, described her as “his inspiration and greatest supporter”.
“I thank all my staff and the management of the Bank for their exceptional work, and our Board of Directors for their incredible support. They make our ideas come to life. They turn impossibilities into possibilities”, he stressed.
The NBA was founded in 1925 and is the oldest and largest national network of predominantly African-American attorneys and judges. It represents the interests of approximately 65,000 lawyers, judges, law professors and law students.
Moreover, NBA is organized around 23 substantive law sections, 10 divisions, 12 regions and 80 affiliate chapters throughout the United States and around the world.