18 January 2016: The African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched a tool for tracking progress on its “High-Five” key development priorities and creating opportunities for corrective action. The application tracks country progress in the High-Five areas identified by AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina as critical for implementing AfDB’s Strategy 2013- 2022 and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Light up and power Africa, Feed Africa, Integrate Africa, Industrialize Africa, and Improve the quality of life for people in Africa.

On these priorities, Adesina indicated, the Bank will work to advance Africa’s transformative agenda, in line with the AfDB’s Strategy 2013- 2022, which aims to achieve more inclusive, sustainable growth. The Strategy identifies five main channels for the Bank to deliver its work: infrastructure development, regional economic integration, private sector development; governance and accountability; and skills and technology. It places an emphasis on agriculture and food security, fragile states and gender.

Adesina described the High-Fives as priority areas in his inaugural speech in September 2015. On Light up and power Africa, he observed that “lack of energy has impeded Africa’s industrialization” and harmed the health of its citizens. On Integrate Africa, he committed to regional integration efforts to link economic activities, such as developing regional energy markets and transnational railways and highways, improving regulations and policies and reducing the costs of movements of goods, services and people. On Feed Africa, he called for a shift from exporting primary commodities to predicting value-added products. On Industrialize Africa, Adesina called for unlocking the potential of small, medium and large businesses and increasing domestic resource mobilization (DRM) from taxes. On quality of life, he recommended transforming Africa’s demographic dividend into economic dividends and investing in Africa’s youth to build entrepreneurship and skills and accelerate job creation. In conclusion, Adesina said the High-Fives are achievable, and they are fundamental to Africa, while “Africa in turn is fundamental to the SDGs. This continent is their testing ground.”

The High-Fives application tracks countries’ progress on the five areas via an open data platform, which allows anyone to access the data and compare performance across time and countries. The application presents ranking tables, maps and charts, as well as detailed information on indicators, grouped according to the High-Five priority areas. Users can export the data to external formats, such as Microsoft Excel, Word, CSV or Powerpoint.

The High-Fives application is part of the AfDB’s African Information Highway (AIH) initiative, an open data platform that aims to increase access to quality data for monitoring, managing and disseminating development results in Africa. The director of the Bank’s statistic department, Charles Lufumpa, said the application makes it easy to track comparative progress for different indicators at national and sub-national levels, including with a mobile device. The tool will also assist senior managers and decision-makers in targeting assistance and resources where they are needed most, and monitoring implementation progress, according to Lufumpa.

Adesina, the former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Nigeria, became the AfDB’s eighth president on 1 September 2015, succeeding Donald Kaberuka of Rwanda. [AfDB Press Release] [AfDB Strategy 2013- 2022] [AfDB President Inaugural Speech] [High-Fives Data Application] [AfDB President Article on High-Fives] [AfDB President’s Corner]