Mauritanian Sidi Ould Tah defeated four candidates including Senegal’s Amadou Hott after three rounds of voting to become the ninth president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) yesterday. He will head the apex pan-African bank for the next five years.
At the final round of voting, Ould Tah won with more than 76.18% of the votes against Zambian Samuel Maimbo (20.26%) and Senegalese Amadou Hott (3.55%). Chadian Mahamat Abbas Tolli was the first to be eliminated, receiving only 0.88% of the vote, followed by South African Swazi Tshabalala (5.9%). In the second round, Ould Tah managed to garner more than two-thirds of the votes among African shareholders.
“It’s a double mandate. A victory with such a majority has never happened in the history of the AfDB,” said Tanzanian Frannie Léautier, Ould Tah’s campaign manager and former vice-president of the institution. In 2015, it took six rounds of voting for the Nigerian Adesina Akinwumi to be elected, with 58.1% of the vote.
Entering the campaign last, the Mauritanian benefitted from his country’s diplomatic networks while his compatriot Mohammed Ould Ghazouani chaired the African Union in 2024. But he was also able to take advantage of Saudi Arabia’s powerful networks, which in particular managed to rally the voices of the Arab League countries.
Over the past ten years, Sidi Ould Tah led the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (Badea), whose capital is held by the countries of the Arab League. Under his leadership, the institution entered the court of the major development banks. He also previously served as Mauritanian minister of economy and finance. Ould Tah will officially take office as head of the bank on September 1.
After 10 years at the head of the institution, Adesina leaves the institution in excellent financial health. In 2024, the total approvals of the bank reached a record of 10.6 billion euros, with disbursements of 6.4 billion euros, an increase of 15% compared to 2023. ”
The AfDB benefits from the AAA label, synonymous with access to capital markets on optimal terms. Under the presidency of Adesina, the AfDB achieved the largest capital increase in its history, from US$93 billion in 2015 to US$318 billion today.
Vying for the AfDB job, Mr Ould Tah announced a programme he called “The Four Cardinal Points”. These are reforming African financial architecture, transforming the demographic dividend into economic power, industrialising the continent while enhancing its natural resources and mobilising capital on a large scale.
The Gambia’s finance minister voted in the election of the new president but we could not confirm who the country backed. The Gambia has 17,929 votes representing a minuscule 0.123 percent of the total votes.
Since it commenced operations in The Gambia in 1974, the bank has committed more than US$456 million to public sector infrastructure projects in agriculture, industry, water and sanitation, energy, transport, governance, education and health. The predominant financing modalities are loans, grants, mainly from resources of the African Development Fund, the concessional arm of the Bank Group.
