Business and Technology Reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
Nation Media Group
Sidi Ould Tah, the former Mauritanian finance minister has been elected as the ninth president of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB).
He succeeds Nigeria’s Akinwumi Adesina, whose two five-year terms end in September.
Dr Tah secured victory in the third round of voting with 76.18 percent of the total votes, defeating Zambia’s Samuel Maimbo and Senegal’s Amadou Hott in a tightly contested race.
“Sidi Ould Tah of Mauritania was elected President of the African Development Bank Group today at the institution's Annual Meetings in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire,” AfDB announced on its official X account shortly after the closed-door election concluded.
Zambia’s Maimbo came second with 20.26 percent of the vote, while Hott finished third with 3.5 percent in the final round.
According to AfDB election rules, a candidate must garner at least 50 percent of the regional (African) member votes and 50 percent of the non-regional (non-African) member votes –or a simple majority of total voting power– to win. Votes are weighted based on each member country’s shareholding in the bank.
Dr Tah’s win was something of a surprise. In the first round, he trailed behind Maimbo, who led with 40.41 percent of the vote, while Tah received 33.21 percent, although he was leading in the regional votes.
Chad’s Abass Mahamat Tolli was eliminated in the first round after receiving only 0.52 percent. In the second round, South Africa’s candidate, Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala, was dropped after coming last with 5.9 percent of the vote – roughly equal to her country’s own voting rights at the Bank.
Mark of his leadership
Until April this year, Dr Tah served as president of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (Badea), a role he held for a decade.
Dr Tah was Mauritania’s Minister of Economy and Finance from 2008 to 2015, having earlier served as an adviser to the country’s President and Prime Minister.
His career in development finance spans nearly four decades, with stints at institutions such as the Mauritanian Bank for Development and Commerce, the country’s Food Security Commission, the Municipality of Nouakchott, the Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development (AAAID), and the Islamic Development Bank.
Yet it is his decade at the helm of Badea that is most often cited as a mark of his leadership. During his tenure, the bank’s credit rating improved and its assets nearly doubled - from $4 billion to $7 billion.
Dr Tah is an economist. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in France, a master’s from Paris Diderot University, and a bachelor’s from the University of Nouakchott.
“My 360-view of development in Africa – from both the demand and supply side - gives me the ability to start running the bank from day one, I don’t need a learning process, because I’ve been running a bank similar to the AfDB for ten years,” he told The EastAfrican in the run-up to the election.
He said his vision for the AfDB is anchored on four pillars: Mobilising over $400 billion annually for Africa; reducing risk and borrowing costs for governments; formalising the informal sector through SME financing and entrepreneurship programmes; and investing in climate-resilient infrastructure.
In addition, he sees a role for the AfDB in frontier technologies. After launching a special venture capital fund at Badea, he promises to do the same at AfDB to support African start-ups.
He is one of the few traditional bankers openly endorsing the use of blockchain technology – on which cryptocurrencies are built – in mainstream finance.
“I don’t see any reason for these technologies to work in other continents and not in Africa. We need to embrace technology. We need to be ambitious and risk-taking because we need this continent to prosper,” he said, referring to blockchain technology.
On Africa’s debt woes, Dr Tah favours more public-private partnerships to finance infrastructure, rather than additional borrowing. He also believes African countries are penalised unfairly in international bond markets due to skewed credit ratings - a challenge he says the AfDB can help address by reframing the global narrative on Africa.
With growing criticism of the International Monetary Fund’s role in Africa’s economies, Dr Tah believes the AfDB should take a more assertive stance in advising governments and asserting Africa’s macroeconomic interests globally.
“I believe that the AfDB has the responsibility to be the voice of Africa in the international arena as far as macroeconomics and economic development are concerned. The bank has the legitimacy, the convening power and the ability to do so,” he told The EastAfrican.
Other candidates in the election included Amadou Hott (Senegal), Samuel Maimbo (Zambia), Mahamat Abbas Tolli (Chad), and Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala (South Africa).
