KemetLeads
Donald Kaberuka
He rebuilt a treasury after the genocide, then tripled the capital of Africa's own bank from Tunis.
The rise
Born in Byumba, northern Rwanda, on 5 October 1951, Kaberuka studied at Dar es Salaam, took a master's at East Anglia in 1979 and a Glasgow doctorate in economics, then spent over a decade in banking and international trade. In October 1997 he became finance minister of a country three years out of genocide.
What they did
He stabilised Rwanda's finances over eight years. Elected seventh president of the African Development Bank in 2005, he steered the Bank through the 2008 crisis, won a tripling of its capital to about $100 billion in 2010, launched Africa50 for infrastructure, committed $223 million against Ebola in 2014 and led the return from Tunis to Abidjan that year, AAA rating intact.
The full picture
For eight years he was a minister of a government whose repression at home and role in eastern Congo are documented, and he has never distanced himself from it. The Bank's own 2015 evaluation found it less able to fund and finish what it launched, disbursement slowing.
Why it matters
Rwanda enters this collection through Kagame. Kaberuka is the other Rwandan trajectory: the technocrat who rebuilt a treasury from nothing, then ran the bank that decides which African infrastructure gets financed.
“Presidents come and go, but the Bank stays. Africa needs a strong AfDB - and we have an AfDB that gets stronger by the day.”