voice-over: this is bbc news. we will have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. of all the world's continents, africa is the one likely to see the greatest transformation in the course of this century. it will likely be home to almost 40% of all humanity by 2100. if, by then, africans have benefited from sustainable development, their global economic power will be enormous. if they haven't, then they could be facing cataclysmic levels of economic and environmental breakdown. my guest is the president of the african development bank, akinwumi adesina, sometimes dubbed "africa's optimist—in—chief". is his positivity realistic or deluded? akinwumi adesina, welcome to hardtalk. it's good to see you, stephen. it's great to have you here. you need the world to believe in a bright african future. how is that going right now? it's going pretty well. if you take a look at the african economic outlook we had from the african development bank, the gdp growth rate, gdp growth rates last year was 3.1%. this year, it's 3.7%. and next year, it's going to be 4.3%. now, why that is important is that that is well above the global average. you still have ten out of the 20 fastest growing economies in the world being in africa. yeah, it's not quite as good as it sounds because you have fast—rising populations across africa. yes, but when you have a lot of global shocks like we have, increasing real interest rates, and you have also a lot of geopolitical risks, you have a lot of inflation all around the world, africa still has its head above the water. yeah, i agree with you that in terms of the population growth rate, it's still high. real gdp is still not as high as we want it to be. africa still needs to grow at double digits, though, for probably another 10, 20 years before you see...millions of people taking out of poverty. but don't forget, africa is still the pivotal continent in which it has tremendous amount of opportunities to actually accelerate its development. but as boss of the african development bank, you need to persuade investors — both state investors, multilateral institution investors and private investors — that africa is a risk worth taking. and right now, we see political instability in many different parts of the continent. we see massive economic problems, perhaps highlighted most by youth unemployment, across the continent of africa. the risks still look enormous to the outsider. well, you know... i mean, you walk across the street, it's a risk. you take a flight, it's a risk. the world is all about risk, the world is about managing risk... yeah, but the investors of the world face choices. they don't have any particular reason to want to invest in africa. let me tell you why they should actually invest in africa, even if i accept some of the risk. first is take a look at what you were saying earlier in terms of population growth rate. you have a continent that is going to have 2.5 billion people by 2050, right? that's going to be really... especially young people — you have a77 million of them less than the age of 35. that's the workforce of the world. secondly... yeah, many of them unemployed young people who will be deeply discontented. no, but actually, when you actually turn that demographic advantage into an economic dividend, that's a different thing. but take a look at also the agricultural potential. well, you know, africa has 65% of the uncultivated arable land left to feed the world, 9.5 billion people, by 2050. that's not in asia, that's not in latin america or europe. it's in africa. so what africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world. but also, remember... 0k. we'll get to the detail of some of that proposition later. but let's just stick with risk because, again, this is about money and it's about loans and debts. and right now, i think it's right to say 22 or 23 african nations are struggling with the kind of massive debt that means they're flirting with default. i mean, some of them have defaulted. zambia, for example, defaulted in 2020. it's onlyjust emerging from default now. that represents, for a lender, a clear and obvious form of risk. well, let's take a look at the risk. perception is not reality. data matters. you know, moody's analytics did an assessment — a iii—year assessment — of cumulative risk of losses on infrastructure around the world. guess what they found. they found that risk of loss in africa — actual risk of loss in africa — was 1.6%. 1.9%. latin america was roughly 12%. north america was 10%. if you take a look at western asia, 4.5%. so that means that africa is not as risky as people say. that said, you do have market risk, you do have political risk, you do have financial risk. and that's what we do as multilateral development banks, is to de—risk those investments. but if you take a look at it in terms of risk—return analysis, africa is still the place to be. hang on. some of this is jargon. so let's be simple about it. when you say we need to "de—risk some of the lending to africa," you basically mean you want special treatment, don't you, from institutions like the imf? no. no, it's not special treatment at all. in fact, africa wants no freebies. we have the instruments to de—risk. let me give you some... well, it is special treatment, because you want these special drawing rights from the imf. they're literally called "special drawing rights". yeah, but i'll tell you, you know, take a look at what we're talking about here. if you take, for example, benin, if benin needed to go to the capital markets to raise money from external investors, right? you still have a risk premium that african countries have, because everybody keeps saying, just like you said, "africa risks premium." we have... it costs us three to four times to raise money than any part of the world. but we have partial credit guarantees that allows us to use $195 million to allow them to raise $400 million from external investors. we did the same also for senegal. we did the same for cote d'ivoire, with $400 million to raise $530 million. what that does is it allows you to go into the capital markets, allows you to raise money long—term and at a lower interest rate. and that is how we de—risk investment. that's very, very important. we just did something, by the way, for egypt. we gave them a partial credit guarantee that allowed them to go issue panda bonds, $500 million on the capital markets, for china. it seems to me one of your messages over your quite long tenure now as president of the adb has been that the key multilateral financial institutions — the imf, the world bank — they are not sufficiently able or willing to understand africa, and they need more african involvement and input. 0veryourtenure, have you seen things change? for example, i'm looking at the fact that the imf has created — or is in the process of creating — a third seat for africa on its board. south africa, for example, is now included in the g20. have you seen things change? well, you know, there's no choice... i mean, there's no doubt that everything has to change even more, right? first and foremost, their globalfinancial architecture is not serving the interests of africa very well. take a look at what happened during covid. while the developed countries actually disbursed, what, fiscal stimulus — $19 trillion, 19% of the global gdp — africa did what? $83 billion? that's just a minuscule 4.5%. take a look at climate change, right? climate change is devastating africa more than anybody else, any other parts of the world. we didn't cause climate change, only 3% of accumulated emissions, but we suffer $7 to $15 billion of losses every single year. ijust came from nairobi, where we had our annual meetings there devastated by floods. and you have zimbabwe devastated by drought and malawi and zambia with that. now what happens is africa needs, you know, stephen, 30... it gets $30 billion in terms of climate adaptation, but it needs $277 billion. now, let's go further in terms of what has happened also with the issue of debt that you were talking about. 0k, we have, you know, the situation for debt was not just because economics were being mismanaged. no, we still have, you know... people say you have long covid — you have long fiscal covid here, in the sense that the economies are still trying to recover from the effects of that covid. but the two instruments that the global financial architecture put up, it's not solving that problem. you have the debt service suspension initiative, which was just simply postpone the evil day. then you have the g20 common framework... so your message is, you know, that, thanks to covid, thanks to climate change, africa's faced profound economic challenges and the international community hasn't really stepped up and responded and understood and appreciated ? if i mayjust say, because you mentioned the issue of the sdr, i'll talk about that. the special drawing rights? special drawing rights. you know, that special drawing rights, i have been a global champion for the need for us to take those special drawing rights of imf and use it better. when they were issued as a contingent facility, $650 billion were issued. africa gets hammered, $33 billion, $4.5 million... so... so i get it. i get it. the message you've delivered over years is that the international community needs to do more... but i...want to tell you... ..for africa. ineed... i need to switch the focus a little bit because you're a former minister of agriculture in nigeria, you're an african politician. surely it's incumbent upon you to recognise that part of the problem here is desperately poor governance infartoo many countries inside africa. well, you know, there's no doubt about the need anywhere in the world to have improved governance, improved transparency, improved accountability. you know, we are... so i don't see you talking about that. no, no. i do. let's talk about... well, let's talk about it. ..one of the most famous african writers, and sort of the conscience of africa, wole soyinka, the nigerian novelist. he said, "too many african states are run by" — his quote — "sick old men," dictators, authoritarians who've been around for decades and decades. corruption is endemic in too many countries in africa. isn't it incumbent upon you to focus some of your effort on getting african nations to change? we actually, within the african development bank, have a programme called sega. you know, it is all about economic governance in africa. it has to do with public financial management. it has to do with debt management. it has to do with reducing illicit capital flows. now, i agree with you — today, we have illicit capital flows out of africa, about $89 billion a year. sometimes it's like pouring water into a basket, right? it needs to be able to hold it. but this much, i will say, even as i agree with all of that — corruption is not unique to africa. look... nobody�*s saying that. no, no. nobody�*s saying that. but what i'm interested in, i'm interested in your priorities. no, no... hang on. there was an extraordinary report in the financial times last year which revealed that your own african development bank anti—corruption fund — which was established, at that point, seven years earlier — had never been used. there was $55 million there to finance anti—corruption efforts, which you simply hadn't tapped into. no, that is absolutely... why? it's not correct. you know, we actually have an independent anti—corruption unit that actually sanctions companies that have non—competitive behaviour... you set up a fund and you didn't spend the money that was in the fund. will you let me make the point? because you're asking me the question, so let me answer it. the point is, we actually have the fund. but in implementing that fund, guess what we found? we found that there were conflict of interests in the way the fund itself was set up. as president of the bank, i'm not going to mingle that with the funds of the bank. and we said, "no, we can't do that." we need to find a way in which that is given to a third party. the money is there, the money is going to a third party. but, look, we're not going to mingle money we've got for those that pay sanctions to ourselves... it just seems extraordinary that for seven years, you had an anti—corruption fund, a so—called integrity fund, which you didn't spend a single dollarfrom. well, $54 million... we are a $380 million bank. and just so that you know, the african development bank was ranked just last year as the most transparent institution in the world. let's get back to the strategic vision. you've outlined it to a certain extent with me over the last few minutes. it is undoubtedly true that climate change and energy transition is one of the key pillars of what you want to achieve with this investment in africa. how's it going? it's going pretty well. you know, we now devote 55% of our overall financing in the bank to climate. when i was elected in 2015, we had only 9% going to climate. but climate is the biggest issue. climate adaptation is the biggest issue. now we have three ways in which we're supporting african countries on that. first is we are... we've made a commitment to double our climate finance to $25 billion by 2030. second, we have a programme that is called african adaptation acceleration program, which is to deploy $25 billion for climate adaptation. by the way, it's the largest climate adaptation programme in the world, together with the global centre on adaptation. and thirdly, nine out of ten, stephen, countries that are most vulnerable to climate change in the world are in africa. 100% of them are in the low income countries that we serve with the african development fund. so what we did was we created a climate action window with $429 million — that will rise to about $13 billion — to deploy capital to support those countries to be able to, you know — for example, let me get practical here — provide crop insurance for 20 million farmers and also have a million hectares of land that's been degraded to be improved, and also 20 million people to have climate information. and so that's what we do. now, interestingly, we have one programme that's working very well. it's called africa disaster risk insurance facility. what it does essentially is it pays premiums for countries when they face exogenous shocks like this one. we've been able to do it for 15 countries. we're scaling that now to $1 billion to be able to insure countries against catastrophic risk events. but it's still not enough. it's still not enough. lots of different mitigation and adaptation efforts that are being financed — partly, at least — by the adb. i'm just interested to know whether you are still willing to finance investment in fossil fuel production, exploration and production, in africa? there are countries — from mozambique to angola to zimbabwe — which are still major players and, to a certain extent, rely on fossil fuel energy. are you prepared to put money in those projects? we are not doing upstream work on oil or gas. any? no, and we don't fund coal either. however, i will say this. we fund natural gas because natural gas is a very important transition fuel for africa, just like it is in europe, where you are, right? you turn on your cooker and you cook. guess what? with gas. why should that be different from african countries? where we lose today, we have 1.2 billion people that don't have access to clean cooking energy. you know, we lose 300,000 women every year. all they are trying to do is just cook a decent meal. that doesn't make any sense. secondly, it's that we need gas also for fertilisers. the same way in which the west has fertilisers, africa has the right to be able to do that. but this much i will say about gas, so that we don't confuse ourselves. you know, gas reduces the amount of emissions you actually get from relying primarily on just simply other fossil fuels. and secondly, when you use that for clean cooking, it actually saves hundreds of millions of hectares of land. thus far, all the promises made by the rich world — the industrialised, developed world — to pour billions of dollars into developing economies, particularly in africa, to help them cope with the potentially devastating impacts of climate change, that money hasn't yet been delivered in any serious amount. is it your message that countries in africa need now to be given massive sort of financial recompense for not, for example, deforesting their extraordinary natural assets? i'm thinking of a country like democratic republic of congo which has vast forests. yeah. you know, in fact, if you take a look at africa today, that congo basin that you were talking aboutjust now is the second only to amazon in terms of the carbon lungs for the world. and so africa is providing the global public goods for which it's not paid for. you know, basically, you have vast carbon sinks, you have vast forests, you have biodiversity, but africa is nature rich but cash poor... but how do you get people to listen to this message? well, let me tell you what we're doing about it, what we're saying. we're not going to be doing that any more. if you take what got us to all the mess that we're all dealing with globally today, it's because of the way we measure wealth. we measure wealth by saying gross domestic product, value of goods and services that an economy produces. but who really cares? because that doesn't tell you anything about the technology used to do it, the externalities for it, and who internalises the externalities. in the case of africa, we have all this forest, and we say we're going to have to revalue and rebase the gdp of africa based on its natural capital stock. and why is that important? so you basically take these forests and say, "this is real wealth..." yes. "..and it has to be recognised, and therefore you have to "give us the credit that comes with having that asset"? yes, steve. and the thing is, if you take a look at the debt to gdp ratio, which is the measure that we use to determine whether your debt is sustainable or not, if you rebase your gdp based on your natural capital stock, your debt to gdp ratio falls... no, iunderstand... no, no, but i want to... and therefore it's easier for you to borrow money, which is where you and the adb come in. i get all that, but isn't there an element of blackmail to this? because the underlying message seems to be, "yes, we are custodians of this vast natural asset" — call it a carbon sink — and the message is, "if you don't recognise that "and recognise it as part of our asset base, "our wealth and loan to us accordingly, "we will exploit it, we'll mine it, we'll deforest it." no, no, no, no, no. no. you see, the coming... it's not about exploitation. it's about being wise and valuing yourself properly, just like if you and i go to a commercial bank and you're trying to value your assets. all we are saying is we want african economies to develop going green. but in going green, the proper valuation of the natural capital of africa, it's very, very important, so africa stops being nature rich and cash poor. 0k, we need to move on because we don't have that much time. 0k. i just want to ask you a little bit more about demographics. you earlier were telling me what a great asset it is for africa to have these hundreds of millions of young people. i, at the beginning, talked about africa becoming home to 4 in 10 of all humanity, potentially, by 2100. isn't the truth of this that there is no way africa can support the levels of population growth that we currently see? well, i think africa is doing well with regard to that. three things i want to say. first is, education matters. you know, with 477 million people under the age of 35, i... and it kind of... sometimes i, you know, see migration to mediterranean and all of that, that breaks my heart, of course. but here is... but it's actually increasing. yeah, exactly. but the future of africa's youth is not here in london. it's not in europe. it's not in latin america. it must be in an africa growing very well, equitably and able to create jobs. but what we are doing... ok, i see the potential, but i also see the downsides. not so very long ago, a few years ago, in this studio, nigeria's former president 0basanjo told me that the levels of population growth in africa that he saw at that particular time, i think it was 2017, represented a ticking time bomb. would you use that language today? i wouldn't use that term. you know, i don't disagree with him. ijust think we need to grow much faster to be able to turn that demographic dividend into an economic dividend. and if you allow me just to make that point, that is why, for example, isn't it odd, stephen, that we have a continent with that amount of people, we don't have financial institutions for young people? and that's why the african development bank is rolling out what we call youth entrepreneurship investment banks. they are new financial institutions that will give debt and equity for the businesses of young people, because i firmly believe that we must create youth—based wealth in africa. we have to improve their skills, their entrepreneurship, their access to financing, and for them to be able to play a bigger role in our economy. look, the future of the world is going to depend on what happens to the youth of africa. and so we are putting our financing at risk on their behalf. otherwise that's going to be our biggest risk, is not taking care of our youth. that's a very powerful statement you just made about how crucially important africa is to the future of the world. you need outside help to ensure that africa's 21st century is a positive story, not a negative one. where do you think most of that help is going to come from in the future? the economist magazine says that america has essentially lost interest in africa. it's so preoccupied with problems in other parts of the world. does that mean that china, maybe russia as well, are going to be where you at the adb, perhaps, but certainly african nation states look for economic support and cooperation in the future? ijust came back from nairobi, where we had the annual meeting, steve, of the african development bank. the african development bank, which has 81 shareholders, which includes 54 african... it includes the us and china. and uk, by the way, great supporter of us, you know. but my point is, geopolitical tensions are rising. does africa need to make a choice about who it partners with? yeah, but i want to say is that we got an increase in capital of the bank from all our shareholders, $117 billion. that puts our capital at $308 billion. and that came from all over. it came from the united states. it came from uk, it came from italy. it came from everybody else. but when it comes to investments, we need to be able to have investors in africa. yes, you and i talk about the issue of risk and how we manage those risks. and those investors can come from any part of the world. the fact of the matter is africa...doesn�*t have to really choose. africa has to decide what's in its own interest and be able to attract the kind of investments it needs. take a look at the transformative power of working together. you know, we have, for example, the lobito corridor, which is linking...angola to zambia, which we are doing with the united states. we also have other corridors we are working with multiple partners on. we also have, by the way, stephen, and i hope i can invite you there, what is called the africa investment forum, which we've been running for the last five years, and we've been able to mobilise well over $180 billion of investment interest to africa. same africa that you were saying has risk is exactly where people are coming to put their money. if you're not in africa, i wonder where else you'll be putting your money in. that's where the frontier is. clearly, this is a hugely important story. but for now, akinwumi adesina, thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you, stephen. thank you. very good to see you. hello there. for most of us a disappointing start to the week. gusts of wind from the north and in excess of 30 miles an hour. temperatures struggled to get into double figures. slightly different further south and west. just look at anglesea. temperatures peaking at around 18- 19 temperatures peaking at around 18— 19 degrees. high—pressure continuing to nudge in from the west. likely to be a few showers around but hopefully fewer and further between. most frequently across eastern scotland and eastern england. sunny spells and scattered showers into the afternoon, impacting the temperature. again, with a little more shelter and sunshine, 17 or 18 to celsius not out of the question. scattered showers moving through northern ireland and scotland. hopefully they will either through the afternoon. temperatures are still really struggling. as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this ridge of high pressure will continue to kill off the showers. wednesday likely to be the driest day of the week. make the most of it, more rain to come. a pretty chilly start once again to wednesday morning. single figures across the country. low single figures in rural spots but hopefully the showers should be few and further between. more sunshine out to the west. temperatures of similar value we have seen all week. the wind direction will start to change as we move into thursday. unfortunately, towards the end of the week, the low pressure will take over and we will see further spells of rain. at times heavy but the wind and will play its part a little. temperatures climbing a degree or so but do not expect anything too significant because we have the cloud and rain around. across eastern and southeast england we could see highs of 20 celsius. take care. live from london, this is bbc news. joe biden�*s son, hunter, is found guilty of lying about his drug use to buy a gun. hamas says it wants a complete halt to war in response to us—backed peace plans. scottish political leaders clash over the cost of living and independence in a bbc debate. and, how long could you last without your smartphone? 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