The African Development Bank Group’s performance over 2025 reflects Africa today – a continent of resilience and opportunity, its Senior Vice President Marie Laure Akin-Olugbade, noted during a presentation of the Bank’s annual results.
The Financial Presentation for 2025 and the 2025 Annual Development Effectiveness Report were presented during a session held 28 May, as part of the 2026 Annual Meetings in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo.
Akin-Olugbade said that despite a very challenging global environment, African countries had continued to perform strongly. In 2025, 12 African countries were among the world’s 20 fastest-growing economies.
She described 2025 as “an exceptional year,” as it saw the Bank Group extend $11 billion in financing – the second highest in its history. The results had impacted women and youth with cumulative approvals reaching $3.1 billion at the end of 2025, supporting more than 26,000 women entrepreneurs. The Bank Group invested in regional corridors and rail infrastructure, agriculture, cities and financial management capacity building, as well as green investments and climate action, among others, all the while maintaining its triple A rating. Private sector operations also reached a record of $2.8 billion in the same year.
Contributions from the Bank Group’s six vice-presidents attested to the transformative reach and delivery of its operations in 2025.
Hassatou N’Sele, Vice-President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer emphasized the institution’s healthy financial standing. “The Bank’s balance sheet is sound. The results speak for themselves,” she said. While development outcomes rather than profitability is the focus of the Bank Group, it has remained profitable. The CFO expressed pride in the Bank Group’s pioneering and successful role in the issuing of hybrid capital by multilateral development banks to stretch their balance sheets. “We have reinvested our profits into our reserves as well as donating some to fund key projects,” N’Sele said.
The seventeenth historic replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF) concluded with a landmark $11 billion, including over $190 million dollars in pledges from African countries. “For the first time ADF beneficiary countries made contributions to their own concessional financing window. This is unique and this is laudable. Our financial strength serves a single purpose – the social and economic development of Africa,” N’Sele said.
Solomon Quaynor, Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization, said the Bank’s non-sovereign operations are shifting into a stronger growth phase, with record private sector lending and greater emphasis on mobilisation, coordination, and partnerships, rather than the Bank Group financing alone. Going forward, governors should expect more streamlined and agile delivery through standardised processes, a one-stop shop for private sector engagement, and stronger collaboration under the new African Financial Architecture for Development (NAFAD).
“One of the good things about NAFAD, (is that) it’s not really about AfDB delivering the highest volume (of approvals), but it’s really about the Bank Group working with a system of the African financial architecture to deliver. And so, for us going forward, mobilization is going to be key. We believe that the platform for private sector growth, not just delivered by AFDB, but delivered by NAFAD, is poised for significant growth.”
Kevin Kariuki, Vice-President Power, Energy Climate & Green Growth elaborated on Mission 300, the bold, transformational effort by the Bank Group and the World Bank to end energy poverty by expanding electricity access at scale. This is translating into real effects on daily life such as enabling children to study at night, preserving medicines, improving water access, creating jobs, and strengthening communities. Bank Group projects under the initiative have helped provide first-time electricity access to 1.5 million people last year and 5.2 million since launch, with plans and financing pipelines aimed at reaching 50 million people by 2030. “I think when it comes to climate finance and energy transition, the African Development Bank leads this particular effort – we were able to allocate 54% of our investments as climate finance,” Kariuki said.
Abdul Camara, Ag Vice President for Regional Development, Integration and Business Delivery argued that fragility in Africa crosses borders through insecurity, displacement, and climate shocks, making it a strategic priority rather than a country-specific issue. In response, the Bank Group is directing substantial financing to transition states, strengthening fragility diagnostics across all operations, using digital tools to supervise projects where access is limited, and partnering with UN and humanitarian agencies to keep delivering services even in conflict settings.
Kevin Urama, Chief Economist and Vice-President for Economic Governance and Knowledge Management spoke of the Bank Group’s knowledge work, which turns analysis into practical change by showing that development depends not only on roads, rails, and other physical infrastructure, but also on stronger governance, better public financial management, sound macroeconomic policies, and human capacity.
“As we could see from the African Economic Outlook report that we just launched, the economic productivity in Africa is very low. The public finance, public investment efficiency in Africa is very low…we also work with the countries to provide the financing that will support building that business environment, the infrastructure, building capacity in public finance management and technical assistance and so on. In the past 10 years, the bank has invested $16 billion in doing so.”
Martin Fregene, Ag Vice President, Agriculture, Human and Social Development underlined the challenge of youth unemployment. The Bank sees youth employment as a central development priority, noting that Africa’s labor market challenge is urgent because 11 million young people enter it each year, while only 3 million find formal jobs.
The Bank has made job creation a cross-cutting goal across its strategy and operations. Fregene highlighted agriculture as a major opportunity for youth employment through its Feed Africa strategy and Enable Youth program. Overall, the Bank argues that young Africans should be treated not as a burden but as the driving force of the continent’s future, with stronger links between training, private sector demand, and development investments.
“We believe that going forward, what we should really do is take a good look at everything we are doing and see how we can help young people acquire skills. We’re going to ensure that young people are at the center of everything we do. We don’t see them as a challenge.”
Akin-Olugbade said the message of 2025 was clear: “In a challenging global context, the African Development Bank Group is delivering today while laying the foundations for greater impact tomorrow. These results confirm both the scale of our ambition and our ability to deliver it—consistently and at pace,” the Senior Vice President said.
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