IN his keynote speech at America’s Calvin University Commencement ceremony, African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi A. Adesina called on the 700 graduates in attendance to be instruments of change in a world facing increasing socio-economic challenges. Adesina highlighted climate change, food insecurity, and a lack of universal access to affordable healthcare as some of the most pressing issues facing the world today.
Adesina, the first international guest to address the university’s Commencement event, shared his own experiences as a university student at Purdue University, where he faced many difficulties, including running out of stipend and having to walk several kilometres in the winter cold to and from lectures. He recalled how his professors rallied to pay for his tuition and upkeep, not knowing that he would later become a World Food Prize Laureate and President of the African Development Bank Group.
Addressing the graduates, Adesina said, ‘In front of me today, I see builders and shapers of hope. You have been well prepared to go into the world to be the change makers. You have received a world-class education. You have been exposed to great ideas, and you’ve worked alongside faculty and students from all around the world.’
Dr. Wiebe Boer, Calvin University’s president, praised Adesina as ‘a man of great accomplishments’ who never forgets those less fortunate, while Nain Miranda Duarte, the president of Calvin University’s Student Senate, urged his fellow graduates to be God’s hands and feet by actively exemplifying the power of generosity.
Adesina was elected president of the African Development Bank Group in 2015 and has led the institution to achieve its highest capital increase in 2019. Last year, the African Development Bank Group and donor countries agreed to an $8.9bn replenishment of the African Development Fund, which provides concessional loans and grants to low-income African countries, the highest replenishment in the 50-year history of the ADF.
He served as Nigeria’s agriculture minister and is credited with transforming the country’s agro-processing sector in four years. In 2017, Adesina won the World Food Prize, partly in recognition of his work with the Rockefeller Foundation and Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.
As Adesina urged the young graduates to be agents of change, he left them with the message that they have a role to play in a world of exciting and infinite possibilities.
