Kenya has the third highest number of employees at the African Development Bank (AfDB), pointing to the big influence that the country has in the pan-African lender.
An analysis of AfDB’s disclosures shows that 124 Kenyans, led by eight senior executives including a Vice-President were working at the pan-African lender at the end of December 2025, accounting for 5.4 percent of the lender’s 2,263 staff drawn from 77 countries.
Cote D’Ivoire, which hosts the headquarters of AfDB tops the list of staff with 347 followed by Tunisia at 127. Nigeria is joint third with Kenya. Neighboring Uganda has 83 staff while Rwanda has 50 employees.
Kevin Kariuki, Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth at AfDB is the most senior Kenyan at the lender, followed by eight others serving as directors and managers.
Kenya has held this position for the past two years, after rising from fourth in 2023 when it had 114 citizens working at the institution.
The disclosures show that AfDB hired one Kenyan last year compared to 19 from Cote D’Ivoire, four from Tunisia and six from Uganda.
The lender however says it is still understaffed.
“Staffing and budget constraints remain a challenge for field missions, especially in providing adequate implementation support to clients and borrowers,” AfDB says in the latest disclosures.
The strong presence of Kenyans at the pan-African lender comes despite the country being one of the smallest shareholders of AfDB, at 1.034 percent with Egypt being the biggest shareholder at 8.49 percent followed by Nigeria (7.57) and Morocco at 6.37 percent.
Kenya is one of the shareholders of AfDB with a stake of 1.034 percent, significantly behind Egypt, Nigeria and the US whose shares are 8.5 percent, 7.6 percent and 5.5 percent respectively.
AfDB draws its employees from the member countries with the lender’s top executive positions including the President and Vice presidents mainly occupied by Africans.
Kenya last year missed a chance to increase its shareholding after failing to take up additional 6,715 shares that were valued at an equivalent of Sh11.9 billion. Egypt, Nigeria and the USA snapped up these shares.
Egypt has 21 staff working at the AfDB, Morocco has 32 while South Africa, which is the eighth biggest shareholder of the lender, has 28 employees.
Germany and the USA, the fourth and fifth biggest shareholders of AfDB respectively, have eight and 45 employees, at the lender in that order.
The pan-African lender has steadily increased its staff count in the past three years from 1,798 in 2023 to 1,897 a year later and 2,263 last year.
AfDB says that increasing the staff numbers remains a priority, in what could see more Kenyans join the lender at either the headquarters in Abidjan or the five regional offices spread across Africa.
The pan-Africa has over the past decade become a key financier of development projects in Kenya, notably in the energy and roads sector.
AfDB has injected billions of shillings to fund the Last Mile Connectivity project, which has been key in scaling up electricity access amongst low-income homes and those in rural Kenya.
The lender also partly funded the Nairobi-Thika superhighway and is also financing construction of a highway linking Kenya to South Sudan and the Kenol–Sagana–Marua highway.
