Africa Should be the Driver of Global Future Prosperity, claims Dr Samuel Munzele Maimbo

???? E. D. Wala Chabala PhD , ????????????, ???? ???????????????? ???????? - With the position of President (CEO) of the African Development Bank Group becoming vacant in November 2025, some of Africa’s finest daughters and sons have thrown their hats in the ring to go for it. And the process of identifying the next President is now in full gear. Indeed, the credentials and accomplishments of all the candidates in the running are such that if that was the only basis for choosing a new president, the electing shareholders would be presented with immense challenges. Perhaps to help separate among these formidable candidates, a more forward-looking approach should be taken by putting more weight on the visions the candidates have articulated.

If such a forward-looking approach were to be taken and the vision put forward by one candidate, Dr Samuel Munzele Maimbo, is considered, the claims he makes are either preposterous, or they embody the very essence of Africa’s future.

For Dr Maimbo does not just talk about how he will run the AfDB were he to assume the role of President. He sees the African Development Bank (AfDB) as the Bank for Africa’s Future to unleash the continent’s potential to drive global economic recovery while achieving prosperity at home! So much so that Dr Maimbo’s goes on to claim that Africa is Key to Global Future Prosperity. It is a whole new and different way of looking at the role of the AfDB President.

It is indeed feasible that some would think that these are just lofty untainable claims for anyone to make, let alone someone who works for the World Bank: That the continent which has been referred to as the dark continent, will now be the light of global development; That the continent that has been but the source of raw materials for other countries’ industrialisation will now be the seat of driving future global industrialisation; That the continent which has struggled to provide employment opportunities for its many young people, some of whom risk it to cross the Mediterranean for greener pastures in Europe, will now be the driver of future global employment; is more than enough for the doubting Thomases to justify their lack of belief.

But in spite of these gloomy and depressing realities, Dr Samuel Maimbo boldly claims that Africa is key to the Global Future Prosperity. And Dr Maimbo has come up with a formula for achieving this role of Africa in driving Global Future Prosperity. He has called it the Purposeful, Process-efficient, Partnership-driven, and People-centric Africa. In short, the 4Ps. I would like to believe that the use of 4Ps is not a random occurrence. It is probably built upon Sumantra Ghoshal’s 3Ps. The late Prof Ghoshal, formerly Professor at Insead Business School in France, argued that the 3Ps, comprising of Purpose, Process and People led to superior performances in organisations. This was in contrast with the 3Ss, standing for Strategy, Systems and Structure. Prof Ghoshal argued that the 3Ps lent themselves to being transformational, while the 3Ss were evolutionary.

If therefore indeed Dr Maimbo’s 4Ps is an extension of Prof Ghoshal’s tried and tested 3Ps, then he is establishing very strong foundations for transformational performance, not only of the AfDB, but of the continent as a whole. And of course, nothing short of such gargantuan transformation will make Africa the key to Global Future Prosperity.

In the 4Ps, ?????? ??????????????, Dr Maimbo pictures Africa as driving the global economy. That it is Africa’s time to take her turn at the wheel of the global economy. And to quote him: “If we want to not just survive but thrive, we must reassert confidence in our own future and drive Africa to the forefront of the world economy.” He goes on to articulate very clear plans of how this purpose will be achieved: To work with African governments to transform debt restructuring; to focus on high value products processed and manufactured in Africa (the Critical Raw Materials being a case in point here); to support competitive academic national service.

???? ??????????????, Dr Maimbo posits that this will ensure that Africa is future-ready. That this will be achieved by ensuring that Africa uses its ingredients of natural resources, youthful population, inter-connectedness, and geographical location at the centre of global trade. Dr Maimbo concludes that all that is needed is to find the right recipe to blend these ingredients with leap-frogging digitalisation, good governance, and reimagined value-chains.

As part of Process, Dr Maimbo specifically points out that urgency is of the essence; that the continent urgently needs meaningful transformation by focusing on the plumbing of intercontinental trade while accelerating the implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area – the world’s largest free trade area. Specifically, that grant financing should be used to eliminate trade barriers, that customs procedures should be streamlined to facilitate trade on the continent, and that African Union ’s protocols of free movement of people on the continent should be actualised.

???? ??????????????????????, that Africa’s natural resources and human capital, referred to above, should be leveraged to drive the global economy to a more prosperous future. Indeed, the global green economy future is not attainable without Africa’s Critical Raw Materials. Africa should take the lead and become the solution to global economic growth challenges boosting productivity, accelerating innovation, and becoming an integral part of the green energy transition. Dr Maimbo believes that AfDB can lead this transformation by using its political, economic, and social convening power to drive the development agenda of the continent. He goes on to describe how financing of economic development will be transformed to significantly increase resources available for investment in African infrastructure, regional development, private sector development, governance, accountability, and skills.

And finally, ???? ????????????, Dr Samuel Maimbo asserts that Africa should take its rightful place at the table of developed nations ???? boosting confidence in its own institutions, systems, and people. That to own our future, we must find strengths within ourselves and amplify them. He proposes deliberate actions to promote Africa’s voices in global economic bodies and initiatives by: i) establishing African private sector indabas of CEOs and Chairpersons and charging them with developing solutions to address barriers to private sector investment on the continent; ii) doubling down on youthful population already driving exciting and meaningful changes on the continent; iii) leveraging transformative power of AI and technology to increase productivity and finally iv) rebalancing global aid architecture to decrease burdens on recipient countries and increasing availability of domestic financial systems to drive change and development on the continent. To paraphrase Dambisa Moyo’s book, ?????? ???????????? ?????? ???? ????????.

Dr Samuel Maimbo thus pictures a future transformed Africa being characterised by: i) development conferences in donor countries becoming investment conferences in African capital cities; ii) replacing 200 donor agencies with 200 private sector investment hubs and funds; iii) African citizens having abundant choice of good jobs on the continent and finally; iv) African countries which still need development aid receiving the same from other African countries.

The foregoing is not to say Dr Samuel Maimbo may not still have some questions to address as AfDB President. These include that most businesses on the continent are part of the Western Multinational Corporations which have been party to driving the extraction of raw materials from the continent on the cheap. Their Chinese counterparts have been no different. Secondly, the continent continues to be regarded as a risky place to do business so much so that even when sovereign ratings are the same, an African country’s debt will attract a risk premium of as much as 500 basis points. And finally, that the curricular of education on the continent may not lend themselves to readily producing highly productive workers, nor them being amenable to AI and such technological transformation. There would also be need to articulate a link to the Africans in the diaspora.

But this is not to say there are deficiencies in Dr Samuel Maimbo’s well-articulated vision of transforming the role of Africa in the future global economy, with AfDB being a catalyst to drive such transformation. When Dr Maimbo’s vision is compared to that of another candidate in the running, this other candidate has only spoken of financial consolidation and expansion, focusing on social environment and education sectors, raw material processing and local industrialisation, and strengthening regional integration and intra-regional trade – reading like proposing an internal restructuring of the AfDB’s departments. It goes without arguing that this one also falls short of the wholesale transformation of the role and position of the African continent in global trade and global economic wellbeing that Dr Maimbo has proposed.

Indeed, with both the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), together representing 63% of the African population and 54% of the continent’s GDP endorsing him, Dr Maimbo’s claims are clearly believed not to be preposterous but to embody the very essence of Africa’s future. The majority of the continent has voted for the future of Africa driving the global economy. It ought to be very difficult for the remaining voting shareholders to think differently.

About the Author

E. D. Wala Chabala PhD is a former McKinsey Consultant, former Executive in a FTSE 100 company, and former CEO of the The Securities and Exchange Commission, Zambia . He currently lectures MBA Corporate Strategy and consults in the same field. He is an alumnus of Universities of 英国剑桥大学 and 英国曼彻斯特大学 .