Africa’s legal community hold the keys to continent’s growth, says African Development Bank President

Justice is not a byproduct of development, but the foundation of development, declared Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the President of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), to close the Law Society of Kenya’s Annual Conference 2025.

“As lawyers, justices and guardians of the law, I urge you to uphold the rule of law, to execute justice with fairness and righteousness,” said Adesina on Friday night, calling on the more than 1,200 lawyers, judges, and government officials in attendance to help champion ethics and ESG principles, digitise court systems, improve legal infrastructure, and protect national assets from predatory debt practices.

Adesina has been praised for leading the African Development Bank with vision and distinction over the past decade, serving two terms as President. 

The first Nigerian to hold the post, and a PhD graduate of Purdue University (in Agricultural Economics) in the United States, he has twice been Forbes Africa’s Person of the Year, and has served UN appointments for the Millennium Development Goals, and the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement. 

Last year, Adesina received the Obafemi Awolowo Leadership Award in Lagos. 

As he approaches the end of his AfDB Presidency, Adesina challenged Africa’s lawyers, judges, and arbitrators to rise as “guardians of promise and stewards of destiny” by enforcing constitutional safeguards on public finance. The rule of law can be “Africa’s new gold”. Adesina called for bold legal and governance reforms to unlock prosperity, urging African nations to: 

• strengthen judicial independence and transparency to attract global capital;

• reform natural resource laws to ensure benefits reach communities, not elites;

• develop sovereign wealth funds to safeguard prosperity for future generations; and

• build strong African arbitration systems to settle disputes locally and fairly.

“When Africa stands for the rule of law, the world will stand with Africa,” said Adesina, as he delivered a closing keynote on “Public Finance, Governance, Justice and Development”, drawing a clear link between judicial independence, sound public finance, and sustainable economic growth. He stressed that Africa’s true wealth lies not only in its natural resources but also in its ability to govern them transparently, enforce contracts fairly, and ensure justice for all citizens.

Africa faces a $100 billion annual gap in foreign direct investment, he noted, a situation compounded by weak rule of law rankings, debt vulnerabilities, and predatory “vulture fund” cases. 

“Evidence suggests that foreign direct investments move more to countries that have political stability, stable democracies, transparency, and low levels of corruption,” said Adesina, noting other key drivers include an independent and transparent judiciary, strong regulatory frameworks, public accountability, efficient public service, competition policy, and respect for intellectual property rights.

He underlined the vital connection between justice and development, arguing that access to justice must be universal. This means legal aid, digitised courts, and grievance mechanisms that bring the law closer to citizens. The AfDB has supported various African countries to address governance, public finance, and justice challenges.

In Rwanda and Côte d’Ivoire, AfDB support to create and modernise specialised commercial courts has reduced dispute resolution times by nearly half, unlocking more than $1 billion in investment. In Seychelles, AfDB-backed constitutional reforms require all sovereign borrowing to receive parliamentary approval — contributing to a fall in the debt-to-GDP ratio from over 100% to below 55%.

In Kenya, AfDB-supported procurement and debt transparency reforms, including parliamentary oversight of public borrowing, are safeguarding public funds.

Known as Africa’s ‘Optimist-in-Chief’, Adesina urged the continent’s legal community to recognise that they hold the keys to turning governance into growth and making development a daily reality rather than a distant promise. 

“Let us make a choice that history will record, and generations will remember.”