Donald Kaberuka, President, African Development Bank Group

Dr. Donald Kaberuka is currently President of the African Development Bank Group. He was elected by the Bank’s Board of Governors in July 2005 and took office on September 1, 2005.

As President, Dr. Kaberuka chairs the Boards of the African Development Bank and the African Development Fund, the soft loan arm of the Group.

Dr. Kaberuka was educated in Tanzania and the United Kingdom where he obtained his M Phil (Econ) and a PhD in Economics from Glasgow University in Scotland. He is fluent in English, French and Swahili.

He served as Rwanda’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning from 1997 to 2005, and has been widely acknowledged as the principal architect of the 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 Central Bank. These reforms resulted in the widely acclaimed recovery of the Rwandan economy, sustained economic growth and enabled the country to benefit from debt cancellations under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in April 2005.

Dr. Kaberuka had 12 years experience in the Banking industry, trade finance, international commodity business and Development issues, before he joined the government.

As minister of Finance and Economic Planning, the President was Governor for Rwanda at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank.