Dr. George Elombi takes over as Afreximbank’s fourth President
President Elombi announced that, over the next five to ten years, he would prioritise sectors he believed would have the most significant and sustained impact on Africa’s trade and wellbeing
CAIRO, Egypt, October 27, 2025/ — African Export-import Bank (Afreximbank) (www.Afreximbank.com) on Saturday in Cairo, Egypt, swore in Dr. George Elombi as the Bank’s fourth President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, taking over from Prof. Benedict Oramah as head of the African Multilateral Finance Institution.
Formalised with an oath administered by Mr. Wale Edun, Chairman of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of the Bank and Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy of Nigeria, the investiture ceremony was witnessed by over 2,000 guests, including heads of state, former heads of state, government leaders and representatives from across Africa and the Caribbean, top African business leaders, all former Afreximbank Presidents, members of the Bank’s Board of Directors, shareholders, serving and former staff members, friends and family of Dr. Elombi, and a host of other dignitaries.
In an inaugural address following the swearing in, Dr. Elombi announced his unwavering commitment to carrying forward the legacy of the Bank’s past, to deepening impact, strengthening partnerships, and continuing the mission of building an Africa that trades with itself and thrives on its own terms.
He pointed out that the structure of global trade was disfavourable to Africa and therefore, had to change as it was too dependent on the export of commodities, saying: “our mission is therefore, to transform the structure of that trade. To change the structure, we must process. We must produce. Unless we produce, we cannot trade.”
President Elombi announced that, over the next five to ten years, he would prioritise sectors he believed would have the most significant and sustained impact on Africa’s trade and wellbeing, including promoting and accelerating value addition and strategic minerals processing to curb the export of raw potential.
“Afreximbank will therefore, create a new, high-impact financing window, specifically for projects that process raw minerals into semi-finished goods or finished goods,” he said. “We will establish a Strategic Minerals Development Programme to finance entire value chains, from extraction and refining to manufacturing finished components, capturing much more value here at home and creating high-skilled jobs for our people.”
Dr. Elombi added that Afreximbank would prioritise the deepening of intra-African trade and regional integration as the success of its value addition agenda would ultimately depend on its ability to secure markets for the goods produced.
“We will intensify efforts to break down trade barriers, strengthen cross-border infrastructure, and foster seamless movement of goods, services, people, and capital across our continent,” he said. “Afreximbank will therefore, continue to play a catalytic role in the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) by driving forward key programmes and initiatives developed over the past decade and by introducing new, targeted interventions, where necessary, to accelerate progress.”
Other priorities outlined by Dr. Elombi include catalysing and building critical trade-enabling infrastructure; leveraging innovation and digital technology, including exploring the creation of a Pan-African Digital Currency, strengthening financial integration and innovation across the continent; and mobilising global African capital.
The Bank would also prioritise its financial strength in recognition that “only a strong and well-capitalised institution can make the scale of interventions required to transform Africa’s trade and development landscape,” Dr. Elombi said, adding that priority would also go to growing strategic and innovative partnerships since partnerships with relevant development institutions was central to the Bank’s mission of advancing Africa’s trade and economic transformation.
“We recognize that Africa’s progress depends not only on the strength of individual institutions, but also on the power of collaboration among them,” stated Dr. Elombi.
President Elombi noted the increasingly hostile narrative targeted at African multilateral institutions owned and controlled by Africans “not because we fail or are seen as another African failure” but “because we are successful” and added that, unlike other multilateral institutions, Afreximbank’s preferred creditor status was not granted out of goodwill or benevolence of governments but was enshrined in the Bank’s Establishment Treaty which is signed by all Member States, Dr. Elombi explained.
The investiture also featured remarks by Mr. Hassan Abdalla, Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, Hon. Louis-Paul Motazé, Minister of Finance of Cameroon, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Founder, Dangote Group, Ms. Selma Malika Haddadi, Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission and Hon. Dr. Terrance Drew, Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Afreximbank.
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Winnie Wambui, co-founder of Harcourt Agri-Eco Farm in Kenya, speaks to IPS outside the Dealroom at the Africa Food Systems Forum 2025, held at the Centre International de Conférences Abdou Diouf (CICAD) in Dakar, Senegal, September 4, 2025. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
DAKAR, Sep 15 2025 (IPS) – Winnie Wambui leans forward on the panel stage, microphone in hand, scanning the room until she spots a raised hand.
Everyone in the room wears headphones, each voice isolated so that discussions don’t clash with sessions in adjacent halls. A question cuts through: how did a student science project become a commercial business?
At 24, Wambui, a Kenyan agripreneur, runs Harcourt Agri-Eco Farm, which recycles organic waste into animal feed using black soldier flies.
“Back then, I didn’t know it would become a farm or a business,” she said to a room of agripreneurs, researchers, and investors, describing her first experiments in 2022 as an energy engineering student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).
Today, her eight-person team processes around 30 tonnes of waste each month and monitors the carbon emissions avoided.
The enterprise now generates at least USD 1,000 in monthly revenue, a modest but steady profit by Kenyan standards.
Inside the calm Knowledge Hub, on a panel organized by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), Wambui tells her story to a dozen listeners in an intimate, almost subdued setting. But just outside, at the leafy Centre International de Conference’s Abdou Diouf (CICAD) in Dakar, Senegal, the atmosphere is charged.
Presidents, cabinet ministers, development banks, and agribusiness executives pace the halls at the annual Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) 2025, the continent’s flagship platform for agricultural policy and investment.
This year, the forum positioned youth at the center of Africa’s food security agenda.
Wambui is part of a new generation of innovative agripreneurs that governments and financiers promise to support.
For the first time, youth agripreneurs joined heads of state on the Forum’s opening stage, a symbolic gesture of recognition in a region where nearly 400 million people are under 35.
“Our median age is just 19. And by 2050, one in three young people in the world will be African,” said Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
He said that if given land, finance, technology and markets, the youths can feed not only Africa but also the world.
However, turning such vision into reality is where the continent struggles.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) often says that Africa holds roughly 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land, yet poor infrastructure, limited financing, and climate shocks keep much of it idle.
With the continent collectively importing approximately USD50 billion worth of food annually, according to the African Export–Import Bank (Afreximbank), the stakes are high.
At the national level, countries like Kenya continue to face hunger crises at emergency levels.
At the start of the year, the World Food Programme estimated that around two million people were experiencing acute hunger—a recurring crisis in a country with relatively better infrastructure and higher investment flows than many of its East African neighbors.
Experts say that despite localized crises, structural issues in African agriculture worsen food insecurity across the continent.
“We have relied on grants and aid to keep agriculture afloat, and this has made the agriculture sector stuck in a risk perception trap,” said Adesuwa Ifedi, Vice President of Africa Programs at Heifer International.
Ifedi said that commercial banks and investors avoid the sector, leaving grants to fill the gap. But grant dependence can undermine ventures in the eyes of private financiers.
“Grants should leverage commercial capital so the ecosystem can thrive,” Ifedi said.
The new 10-year plan aims to mobilize USD 100 billion in investment, raise farm output by 45 percent, cut post-harvest losses in half, triple intra-African agrifood trade by 2035, and place youth inclusion at the core of Africa’s food future under the AU’s Agenda 2063.
In Dakar, over 30 agriculture ministers gathered under the chairmanship of former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn Boshem, pledging to move beyond policy drafting toward delivering tangible results for agribusiness investment.
Their top priority, they said, was to shrink Africa’s food import bill by strengthening regional value chains.
Dr. Janet Edeme, head of the Rural Economy Division at the African Union Commission, told IPS that the Forum provides mechanisms to operationalize CAADP 3.0, aiming to empower at least 30 percent of youth in the agri-food sector while closing a USD 65–70 billion annual financing gap for agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises (agri-SMEs).
She said AFSF offers a rare opportunity for youthful agripreneurs to showcase bankable projects, access mentorship, and meet investors who would otherwise be out of reach.
“There are dedicated spaces—deal rooms, youth innovation competitions, investment roundtables—where these innovators can connect with governments, development finance institutions, and private investors,” said Edeme.
Organizers pointed to new spaces for youth to meet investors, but agripreneurs like Wambui said those opportunities felt distant.
She had never heard of the AU’s new flagship plan.
“I’m only hearing about that from you. If it’s meant to guide Africa’s food future, why aren’t there clear materials or programs I can see and use?” Wambui said. “Otherwise, we leave without knowing what strategies exist to support our work.”
By day two of the six-day forum, she had found her way into the deal room, the flagship space to connect entrepreneurs with investors, but instead of streamlined matchmaking, she found confusion.
“We are looking for the investors, and they’re looking for us—yet we don’t meet. Deals still depend on connections. That’s why I came to Dakar.”
Wambui, who co-founded Harcourt Agri-Eco Farm with two other partners, said the business has grown enough to cover wages, taxes, and debt repayments. Banks now extend her loans.
But that access to financing remains an exception in a system stacked against most, said Dr. Eklou Attiogbevi-Somado, the African Development Bank’s Regional Manager for Agriculture and Agro-Industry in West Africa.
He said that AfDB data shows commercial banks in Africa channel just 3–4 percent of their lending into agriculture.
Dr. David Amudavi, CEO of Biovision Africa Trust, said this capital drought is a huge concern in a sector that drives most livelihoods on the continent.
Amudavi, whose non-profit organization promotes ecological agriculture, said that the squeeze leaves farmers, and especially young agripreneurs, struggling to access credit for starting or scaling their agribusinesses, even though nearly 60 percent of Africa’s unemployed are under 25.
“Without finance, many youth-led ventures stay stuck at micro-scale or collapse,” Amudavi said.
Not far from the Youth Dome, at the deal room, Tanzanian agripreneur Nelson Joseph Kisanga, the co-founder of Get Aroma Spices, is also navigating the same maze.
Seven years ago, he left a banking career to try poultry farming, losing almost everything in his first three years.
Kisanga regrouped, merged his venture with that of his wife, Deborah, also a young agripreneur, and built Get Aroma Spices, now working with more than 50,000 farmers across southern Tanzania.
“Agriculture back home is seen as not for young people,” he said. “Even now, scaling means loans at high interest rates. There’s no other way.”
The family-run company exports turmeric, ginger, cardamom, and avocado oil while operating a youth- and women-led agro-processing hub through a public-private partnership.
His presence at the AFSF forum has already borne fruit.
“My intention coming here was to break into the West African market, and I’m happy to say I have clinched a supply deal in Ghana. All that’s left is for the lawyers to finalize the contract.” Kisanga said, before moving to the Youth Dome, a separate pavilion for young participants.
Inside, some groups chatted, others played basketball and table tennis, while others listened as young agri-food innovators pitched their ideas to a panel of investors.
Despite the fanfare, the forum ended without revealing how much capital reached youth-led ventures.
The most visible funding for youth at the summit came via the GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize, a pan-African initiative under the Generation Africa movement. The prize awarded USD 50,000 each to Egypt’s Naglaa Mohammad, who turns agricultural waste into natural products, and Uganda’s Samuel Muyita, who uses nanotechnology to reduce post-harvest fruit and vegetable losses.
An additional USD 60,000 impact award brought total prizes to roughly USD 160,000.
Other announcements included a USD 6.7 million trade programme from the United Kingdom (UK), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and the African Union (AU).
Senegal also launched a USD 22.5 million pilot for Community Agricultural Cooperatives, with financing linked to the African Food Systems Resilience Fund.
Yet there was no breakdown showing how much, if any, flowed to youth-led ventures.
The opacity mirrors past patterns.
Public summaries from the 2023 deal room reported only USD 3.5 million in closed investments, with no traceable flows to youth-led enterprises.
With AFSF positioned as Africa’s premier delivery platform, observers measured the announcements against CAADP 3.0’s USD 100 billion mobilization target, saying the gap is stark.
“We have seen this pattern before: big pledges at the summit, but little clarity or follow-up on how much actually reaches youth and smallholder farmers—the backbone of African food production,” said Famara Diédhiou, a Senegal-based food systems program manager with a regional civil society network.
“Without such accountability and inclusion of all stakeholders, these forums risk becoming mere showcases rather than platforms that deliver,” he said.
For now, even with the youth-first theme, AFSF still leaves young founders stuck in the same cycle of chasing visibility, hustling for contacts, and stitching together their own contracts.
As Wambui found, Kisanga, who has attended three previous Forums, said that in AFSF access is everything: you need to know in advance who to meet and be in the right room at the right moment.
“All visibility is currency,” said Kisanga. “That’s how you survive.”
