Former President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Dr Donald Kaberuka called for Africa to strengthen and integrate its financial and governance institutions to safeguard the continent’s future in a rapidly fragmenting global order during the 9th Babacar Ndiaye Lecture held in Washington DC on November 6, 2025.
Delivering the lecture on the sidelines of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings, Kaberuka warned that the world is not waiting for Africa, therefore Africa must not wait for the world, urging African nations to take ownership of their development agenda through resilient, homegrown institutions.
Reflecting on global power shifts, Kaberuka identified five trends reshaping the global economy: the return of mercantilism, rising narrow national interests, the end of the aid era, weakened global institutions, and the erosion of multilateralism. For Africa, that means turning inward while leading the charge for a renewed global architecture.
Kaberuka stated that strong nations are built on strong homegrown institutions, not on borrowed ideas or conditional generosity. He emphasized that Africa can no longer rely on post war institutions that were never designed to address Africa’s challenges.
The former AfDB chief emphasized that Africa’s development requires an ecosystem approach, where institutions across sectors including finance, trade, peace and security, health, and governance operate in coordinated harmony rather than isolation. He stated that like an orchestra, African financial institutions on their own will not get to the end point, urging that they have to be part of an ecosystem and operate together in a symphony.
Kaberuka commended the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) for exemplifying this model through its support for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the regional economic communities and other initiatives and institutions of the continent.
Kaberuka, who is also Chairman and Managing Partner of SouthBridge, a financial advisory and investment firm, argued that Africa must lead in reshaping global governance to reflect 21st century realities and replace the post World War II institutions such as the Bretton Woods system which were primarily designed for the reconstruction of Europe and Japan rather than the needs of emerging African economies.
He stressed that as the world moves from globalization to fragmentation, Africa’s ability to define and defend its interests will depend on the strength, coordination, and legitimacy of its own institutions. Pointing to over $1.1 trillion held by African pension and sovereign wealth funds, he called for new models to mobilize and connect this capital with global investment flows, stating it is not only about mobilizing African capital but about defining how that capital is deployed for Africa, by Africa.
Dr George Elombi, Executive Vice President for Corporate Governance and Legal Services and incoming President of Afreximbank, called for urgent action to strengthen Africa’s financial sovereignty through the completion of the continent’s financial architecture. Elombi said the time has come to move decisively toward the establishment of the African Monetary Fund and the African Central Bank as full operational pillars of sovereignty.
He outlined several imperatives for African financial institutions going forward, including mobilising domestic capital by deepening investment in African assets, ensuring regulatory clarity to uphold investor confidence, fully operationalising the AfCFTA, expanding counter cyclical capacity, and encouraging collaboration with the African diaspora to boost investment and co create solutions.