Biography

Mr. Donald Kaberuka is the seventh elected African Development Bank Group (AfDB) President.

He took the oath of office on September 1, 2005, in a ceremony at the institution’s Temporary Relocation Agency in Tunis. The occasion was witnessed by the Chair and members of the Bank’s board of governors, the board of directors, members of the diplomatic corps in Tunis and staff of the institution.

“I solemnly declare and undertake…that I will abide by the provisions of the Agreement establishing the African Development Bank… and that I will discharge my duties and functions… with loyalty, discretion and conscience.” With those words, Mr. Kaberuka became the seventh elected President of the Bank in 2005 for the next five years.

As Bank Group President, Mr. Kaberuka chairs the institution’s boards:  the African Development Bank and the African Development Fund, the Group's soft loan arm.

Biography

Mr. Kaberuka was educated in Tanzania and the United Kingdom where he obtained his M Phil (Econ) and a PhD in Economics from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

He speaks English, French and Swahili fluently.

Prior to joining the Bank, Mr. Kaberuka served as Rwanda’s finance and economic planning minister from 1997 to 2005, and has been widely acknowledged as the country’s principal architect of its successful post-war reconstruction and economic reform programme. He initiated and implemented major economic and governance reforms in the fiscal, monetary, budgetary and structural domains, including the independence of the country’s central banks. These reforms resulted in the widely acclaimed recovery of the Rwanda’s economy and sustained economic growth which enabled the country to benefit from debt cancellations under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in April 2005.

Mr. Kaberuka had over 12 years experience in the banking industry, in trade and finance, in the international commodity business and in the development sector, before joining the government.

As the country’s finance and economic planning minister, the AfDB President served as Rwanda’s governor at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank.