Daves de Sousa Bags 2022 African Finance Minister Award

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Angola’s Minister of Finance, Vera Daves de Sousa has emerged the winner of this year’s African Finance Minister Award.
The award, organized by the African Banker magazine through the vote of an independent committee of industry experts, is traditionally announced during the African Development Bank (AfDB) Annual meetings.

The committee awarded the 2022 Best African Finance Minister category to the minister “for her stand-out work in restoring stability and market confidence to her country”.

Daves de Sousa, was born in Luanda, and has a degree in Economics from the Catholic University of Angola (UCAN). She is the first woman to rise to the post of Minister of Finance in Angola. Prior to her appointment, she was Secretary of State for Finance and Treasury.

She has a Banking Techniques and Practices qualification from the Institute for Banking Training in Portugal, and a Derivatives and Bond Markets qualification from ICAP. She worked as Finance Technician at Sonangol ESSA, as Director of the Products and Research departments at Banco Privado Atlântico, as a lecturer in Financial Markets at the Executive MBA promoted by the Catholic Business School Alliance, and as a lecturer of Public Finance and Economic Integration at UCAN – Faculty of Economics.

From 2014 to 2016 she was the Executive Director of the Capital Market Commission, and from September 2016 to October 2017, she was the Chairman of the Capital Market Commission in Angola. She also played the role of economic commentator in various media. She was the co-author of a book on Public Finance.

AfDB’s Executive Director for Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Dr. Judith Kateera presented the award to the minister during her official visit to Angola to engage with government officials, visit project sites and take stock of the Bank’s support to national programmes in the Central African country.

Describing the award as a well-deserved prize, Kateera said it highlights the impressive results achieved by the government of Angola and Minister Daves in bringing down public debt to a more sustainable level, reducing borrowing costs and implementing significant reforms to increase the transparency and efficiency of the public finances.

“The significant reduction of public debt from 131 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2020 to 61 percent today, as well as the successful issuance of Eurobonds reducing total borrowing costs as examples of clear results achieved in a very short time span”, she said.

During her visit to the oil-rich nation, she also met with the Minister of the Economy and Planning, Mário Caetano João, to discuss significant macroeconomic improvements made by Angola in the past two years. Moreover, during discussions they analyzed the performance of Bank-financed projects and outlined steps for the AfDB’s further engagement in support of country’s national development plans.

The Bank’s executive director also expressed satisfaction on Angola’s progress in stabilising public finances, stimulating economic diversification.

“I am impressed with the efforts of the government of Angola in creating a more diversified economy and to support micro-businesses. I am particularly pleased with the strong gender impact of this initiative and pleased that the African Development Bank has been supporting these efforts”, she stressed.

In her response, Daves de Sousa said: “We are pleased that this visit confirms the strong partnership between the government of Angola and the African Development Bank, which remains a preferred provider of development finance and expertise to accelerate Angola’s development”.

Kateera also visited the Kwanzas market in Luanda, to appreciate the activities of formalization of Micro, and Small Sized Enterprises (MSSEs) co-financed by the African Development Bank and other development partners under the Government of Angola’s flagship Programme for the Requalification of the Informal Economy (PREI).

To date PREI has formalized over 240,000 MSEs, of which over 60 percent are women-led, through outreach efforts in markets and areas of trade and production. The programme offers a one-stop shop in easily accessible locations for services of registration, social security, advice on compliance with the simplified fiscal framework for micro and small enterprises, training for basic accounting and financial literacy as well as access to credit lines.

Angola has been a shareholder of the Bank since 1977. The AfDB in Angola has a portfolio of $1.05 billion distributed across four its High Five priority areas: Power Africa (44 percent), Improve the quality of lives for the people of Africa (31 percent), Feed Africa (17 percent) and Industrialize Africa (8 percent). Its operations focus on five sectors: Power, Agriculture, Social, Finance, Water & Sanitation.