In the just-released 2024 Aid Transparency Index, a project managed by Publish What You Fund, the sovereign operation of the African Development Bank (AfBD) topped the table with a score of 98.8. The International Development Association –World Bank (IDA), for all its showboating, came a distant fourth, while the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) came second and third.
For the second year in a row, the AfDB has been rated more transparent in its dealings with governments than the World Bank and other Western financial institutions. While its non-sovereign portfolio scored 78.8 percent, placing it 13th out of the 50 institutions surveyed worldwide, including the Americas, Asia and Europe, the breakdown of the AfDB’s score makes it even more interesting. In the most sensitive area of the Integrity Scoreboard – finance and budget – it scored 24.9/25 or 99.6 percent, well above the average (50.5 percent).
The survey deserves attention because when it comes to influencing survey reports of this kind, the AfDB or any other institution from the African continent does not stand a chance. Indeed, there is no African on the board of Publish What You Fund, which conducted the survey as part of its global campaign for transparency, accountability, integrity and fair access to development finance.
Dispelling sweeping generalisations about Africa
Records of the famous Corruption Perception Index (CPI) have not helped to dispel the assumption that African entities, especially political ones, always fall short of the transparency bar. Seychelles, for example, was the only country from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to make the top 20 in last year’s CPI. The fact that the bottom 50 countries are all from the black continent also shows that Africans are not trusted when it comes to transparency.
While the AfDB President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, and his team were enjoying their latest add-on, his country of birth, Nigeria, was still reviewing a damned editorial on its economic reforms, published by another US-based institution, The Financial Times (FT), a newspaper that has flourished on the wheels of Western arrogance since 1888.
Titled ‘Will shock therapy revive Nigeria’s economy – or sink it further’, the article deviated from the thrust of the editorial, describing Nigeria as an inefficient and corrupt state. The FT’s position captured and resonated with former British Prime Minister David Cameron’s infamous moment of indiscretion when he told the late Queen Elizabeth that he expected a ‘fantastically corrupt’ Nigeria at his 2016 anti-corruption summit, with Nigeria prominently framed in the context.
Nigeria is not the only target of Western derision. Africa, like other parts of the global south, is often reduced to a corrupt entity, with derogatory language aimed at South Africa, Nigeria, Sudan, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe and many others at one time or another, with some political figures having to wear such labels like a second skin throughout their lives.
African companies are not perceived as being more transparent; for many commentators, they are a reflection of the political systems. Private companies are often seen as the beneficiaries of public graft or compromised by the politicians who are most often the beneficiaries.
But the AfDB appears to be turning the tide, having raised the bar on transparency to new heights in recent years. This has not been easy. The AAA-rated bank has fought its way through a thick war of conspiracy; it has been a hard-won battle.
Integrity test and Western conspiracy
In the lead-up to Adesina’s re-election, unnamed staff at the bank reportedly made allegations bordering on ‘impunity and bad governance’. The United States and some non-regional shareholders rejected a clean bill of health from the bank’s board of governors, which comprises African finance ministers, and insisted that the allegations be investigated by an independent panel.
“We fear that the wholesale dismissal of all allegations without appropriate investigation will tarnish the reputation of this institution as one that does not uphold high standards of ethics and governance. Therefore, the United States cannot support dismissing the allegations at this stage,” Steven Mnuchin, the then US Treasury Secretary, wrote to African shareholders.
The United States, Japan, Germany, Canada and France, which together hold 23 per cent of the bank’s shares, were uncompromising about the allegations, which, if true, would have been a breach of the bank’s rules. A Committee later conducted an investigation and declared that Adesina was “totally exonerated of all allegations made against him” and recommended that the Board of Governors adopt its conclusions. The Committee’s decision marked the beginning of a new AfDB, an institution that could stand the test of integrity in business conduct.
But every era is shaped by the reigning king. Next year, Adesina will hand over the AfDB to another elected president who will have to choose between upholding the African way of integrity or allowing the institution to conform to the low expectations the world has of anything African.
