Mauritania’s former Finance Minister, Sidi Ould Tah has been elected President of the African Development Bank Group for a five-year term. Tah will take over from Nigeria’s Akinwunmi Adesina whose second term expires in September.
The election results were announced at the annual meeting of the bank in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Tah scored 76.18 percent of the vote, defeating Zambian economist Samuel Munzele Maimbo, who score 20,2%
Tah’s emergence at helm of is coming at a critical time as the bank faces an uncertain global economy. With the recent aid cuts by the Trump administration, AFDB faces the risk of losing 500 million dollars in US funding for its projects to support low income countries on the continent.
The AfDB, founded in 1964, is one of the world’s largest multilateral development banks and is funded by member subscriptions, loans raised on global markets as well as repayments and income from loans.
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But Tah will immediately face a disrupted international economic environment, notably due to announcements from the US Trump administration.
However, he vowed to strengthen regional financial institutions, assert Africa’s financial independence on global markets, use population growth as a development lever and build climate change-resistant infrastructure.
