OREANDA-NEWS. The African Development Bank (AfDB) is pleased to announce the launch of an annual speaker series known as The Baobab Forum on Monday, August 31, 2015 at its Abidjan headquarters. This new initiative is designed to bring together a diverse and distinctive group of African opinion leaders, global thinkers, and achievers to share their personal experiences, with a view of promoting new and inspiring ideas to tackle Africa’s development challenges. The theme for the first edition is “The Many Faces of Leadership for African Development”.

Two former African Presidents – Festus Mogae of Botswana and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde – will join the outgoing AfDB President, Donald Kaberuka, to reflect on various facets of leadership for the Africa we want 50 years from now.

Other speakers include:

  • Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigerian economist, former Finance Minister of Nigeria and former Managing Director of the World Bank
  • Fred Swaniker, educational entrepreneur, founder the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg
  • Olajide Idris, former Commissioner for Health in Lagos States, Nigeria
  • Saran Daraba Kaba, Executive Secretary, Mano River Union, Sierra Leone
  • Elhadj Ibrahima Bah, medical doctor and supervisor at the Ebola treatment center in Donka Hospital, Guinea-Conakry

Jeff Koinange, host of Jeff Koinange LIVE, a talk show broadcast on Kenya’s Television Network, will moderate this inaugural edition.

The Baobab Forum is expected to contribute to building the soft infrastructure that Africa needs to achieve sustainable socioeconomic transformation envisaged in the AfDB’s 2013-2022 Strategy and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 laying out broad guidelines for the future of Africa.