By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, Executive Council Member, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) – Ghana.
In a grand hall at the Sofitel Hotel in Abidjan, the Ivorian capital’s leafy suburb of Deux Plateau, Dr. Sidi Ould Tah sat on the dais – his eyes fixed, focused and unwavering across the softly lit Palais de Congress, as though he had come face to face with the future. He had.
On May 29, 2025, he had been elected President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Africa’s leading multilateral finance institution. On this day, September 1, the Mauritanian, a former economy minister, was being sworn in as AfDB’s ninth President for an initial five-year tenure out of a possible two terms, following 10 years of the ever bow-tied Nigerian, Akinwumi Adesina, at the helm.
As Dr. Tah sat mulling the future, his own enlarged portrait projected from an electronic screen behind him, as officials went through the elaborate motions of his inauguration. For the 62-year-old banker with a no-frills-no-fuss reputation, the formalities in the presence of the Ivorian and Mauritanian Presidents, and scores of banking and finance royalties from around the world, must have felt like a tortuous eternity. Dr. Tah, a polyglot who speaks French, Arabic, English, Portuguese and Spanish, is, ironically, a man of few words. He grew up guided by the adage of his Mauritanian elders: “One must talk little and listen much.”
Until he joined the race for the 61-year-old institution’s top job early this year – the last of five candidates to do so – Dr. Tah was the President of the Riyadh-based Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), previously headquartered in Khartoum. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France, and comes from a family famed for their scholarship.
Analysts consider this year’s AfDB presidential contest as the most widely followed and competitive in the bank’s history. Of course, social media had a lot to do with it. It threw open the doors of the race, and heightened public interest, and candidate scrutiny beyond the electoral college of 81 Central Bank Governors.
Of greater substance, however, was the fact that this election was taking place amid global trade uncertainty and substantial funding cuts to the bank’s kitty, including $555 million slashed by the Trump Administration from the African Development Fund (ADF), the AfDB’s concessionary lending arm.
Dr. Tah won an unprecedented 76 percent of shareholder votes in the third round of balloting, with Dr. Samuel Maimbo of Zambia, a World Bank Vice-President, coming in second with 20.2 percent. Amadou Hott, a former AfDB Vice-President and ex-Senegalese finance minister – the first to launch his campaign months earlier in 2024, trailed with 3.5 percent. Two other candidates, Abass Tolli of Chad, a former Governor of the Bank of Central Africa, and another former AfDB Vice President Swazi Tsabalala of South Africa, were eliminated as they came bottom in rounds one and two respectively.
54 African shareholders, or ‘Regionals’, hold a 60 percent stake in the bank. Nigeria is the biggest single shareholder with 9.3 percent. ‘Non-Regionals’ – or non-African shareholders comprising 27 countries hold 40 percent. The United States is their top shareholder with 6.6 percent. To win, a candidate must receive a simple majority of the votes of “regionals”, plus a majority of the “regionals” and “non-regionals” votes when combined. The value of a shareholder’s vote is weighted by its shares.
- Click below for statement of voting powers:
https://www.afdb.org/en/documents/afdb-statement-voting-powers-30-april-2025
Dr. Tah ran on a platform with four clear pillars with catchphrases for what he called “a stronger, smarter and sovereign Africa”. He wants to, first, unlock Africa’s capital power (“Every dollar must work like ten”); second, rebuild Africa’s financial sovereignty (“Africa must speak with one financial voice on the global stage”); third, turn demography into a dividend (“youth and women are not a challenge – they are the engine”), and build resilient infrastructure and add real value (“raw exports are history, industrial Africa is the future”).
A shopping list couched for easy recall is all well and good, but the value of a promise lies in the record of the one making it. And that’s where Dr. Tah’s more than thirty-five years in African and international finance stood him in good stead.
As Mauritania’s minister of economy and development, Dr. Tah implemented structural economic reforms. “His governance experience provides him with a comprehensive understanding of both the demand and supply sides of development finance,” says Dr. Frannie Lautier, a Tanzanian former Vice-President of AfDB, who heads Southbridge Group, an investment advisory firm with offices on multiple continents. She was the team leader of Dr. Tah’s campaign.
As President of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), Dr. Tah transformed a little-kown financial institution into a AAA+ multinational development bank. Out of $15 billion dollars committed by BADEA in 50 years since its founding, $11 billion was signed during Dr. Tah’s 10-year tenure as President. He left footprints of tangible development projects in Africa, including a 400MW solar power project which impacted over 800,000 households and enterprises in arid African countries.
“Tah’s decisive victory reflects a desire among shareholders for a leader with a track record of institutional transformation and financial innovation. His election suggests a shift towards prioritizing capital mobilization and institutional reform,” said Dr. Leautier.
But something else happened in the course of the campaign. The funding cut announced by the Trump Administration coming on the heels of declining overall official development assistance, prompted African shareholders to look elsewhere for replenishment. That would be the Gulf. And in Dr. Tah, they found the ideal man. As one AfDB executive director put it, “even Donald Trump has turned to the Gulf; what are we waiting for?”
“Tah’s election reflects a clear shareholder pivot toward Gulf capital,” said Tom Bonsundy-O’Bryan, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, in the Council’s analysis of the prospects of Dr. Tah’s election and leadership.“Shareholders prioritized a candidate who could mobilize alternative funding.” His track record of doubling BADEA’S assets, and experience in channeling Gulf sovereign wealth co-investment vehicles points the way forward for AfDB.
Despite running away with the race, Dr. Tah’s competition was not weak. The runner-up, World Bank VP, Dr. Maimbo of Zambia is a 30-year veteran of the Washington DC-based institution. However his proximity to the levers of power in the US capital’s beltway failed to dissuade the Trump administration from turning its back on the AfDB. Can’t blame him. Not many can coax the US President out of anything.
But that was not all. Though an eloquent debater with a clean-shaven choirboy mien, the 52-year-old was hobbled by a lack of prior institutional leadership in Africa. His slick online videos registered bounteous scoops of social media “likes” and prodigious “impressions.” However, his strategy appeared fashioned for an election by universal adult suffrage rather than a conclave of just four score. Besides, he was hampered by a dearth of African political street cred, which might have been ameliorated had he, for instance, ventured into a cabinet position in his home country.
And then there were the others. Hott may have paid the price for his perceived closeness to Adesina. Unenamoured with his tenure, many shareholders were eager for a future unencumbered by residue from the previous administration. Both Hott and Tsabalala, who was the only woman on the ballot, had served as VPs under the flabuoyant Nigerian.
In a show of good sportsmanship, African comradeship, and Dr. Tah’s own sense of grace, all the contestants attended the inauguration ceremonies, except Abass Tolli, citing family reasons. Dr. Tah acknowledged them warmly.
So! He now has the mantle and all that it entails. It entails a lot. “I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb,” he said in his acceptance remarks, quoting Nelson Mandela. It helps that he can see the hills ahead.
Dr. Tah put out two other messages which received thunderous applause that inauguration day. First, he said Africa must look north, south, east and west, not to imitate but to draw wisdom and strength from each direction, while charting its own course.”
Second, he addressed the primacy of peace in Africa. “We must urgently revisit our investment schemes to introduce an entire section devoted to investment in peace,” he said. “ There is no development without peace. There is no peace without development.” That brought the house – and the curtains down.
The new AfDB under Dr. Tah’s leadership may mobilize and channel big capital into the continent. But Africa must be at peace to receive and utilize it impactfully.
When Africa is prosperous and at peace, then it can chart its own course.
P.S: “He who lends you feet can tell you where to go.” ~ Wollof proverb.
END.