AfDB: Challenges in a historic context for Sidi Ould Tah

The new head of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mauritanian Sidi Ould Tah (pictured) takes the reins of the institution in a context of a global crisis that is gaining momentum and particularly affecting the African continent. While the main international donors—including the European Union—are seeking to reduce development aid, the new Trump administration has announced the elimination of the American contribution to the African Development Fund. This decision has far-reaching consequences and would have a direct impact on the AfDB's programs in several African countries, writes Mass Mboup.

"Now to work: I'm ready!" He will not take office until September 1, 2025. But this sentence alone, uttered by Sidi Ould Tah, elected on May 29, 2025, in Abidjan, as president of the African Development Bank (ADB), sums up the determination that drives the Mauritanian economist. The immensity of the task that awaits him as well. It sounds like a call to action to give this financial institution the means to meet challenges that are, to say the least, titanic and complex. His ten-year experience (2015-2025) at the head of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (Badea) and his networks woven throughout the world over several years will not be too much to support him in the next five years of his first term. Like many other international institutions, Sidi Ould Tah will have to reckon with the possibility of the United States, which holds approximately 7% of the AfDB's stake, leaving the country. This prospect, born of Donald Trump's unilateralist mantra, would diminish the institution's financing capacity and would undoubtedly impact a large number of ongoing projects and programs, particularly in Africa.

But the Mauritanian banker's large and consensual victory in the Abidjan election (a plebiscite!) fortunately created another context: the clear desire of all shareholders to take the AfDB to a decisive level, far from the turmoil caused by suspicions of internal corruption and the six rounds of voting that preceded the difficult re-election of the flamboyant Akinwumi Adesina in 2020. All things considered, if the unpredictable Trump carries out his threat, nearly $500 million in annual contributions to the bank's fund would be missing. For the AfDB, the blow would inevitably be a hard one! But it would also be an opportunity to push the wealthy Gulf monarchies - increasingly eager for soft power influence - to invest in a global financial institution.

In this regard, it is reasonable to assume that the massive support from Arab countries for Sidi Ould Tah's successful candidacy was driven by a genuine desire to have a greater stake in the AfDB's capital. Today, increasingly resource-rich resources remain at the heart of the African Development Bank's strategies. This is the sine qua non for the financial institution to continue implementing its High 5 priorities, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): "Feed Africa," "Light up Africa," "Industrialize Africa," "Integrate Africa," and "Improve the quality of life" of Africans.

The scale of the investments that the continent so desperately needs for its emancipation then comes into conflict with the United States’ stated and radical concern to no longer finance the well-being of non-American populations around the world. Washington’s systemic desire to restrict or cancel its financial contributions to international institutions could also affect the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, traditional but criticized partners of African countries on which policies that sacrifice ever-increasing social demand are still “imposed”.

Would this be the right time for the African Development Bank to strengthen its partnerships? The strategic vision of the African Union's Agenda 2063 - closely linked to the implementation of the "High 5s," according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - is a historic opportunity for the AfDB to shake up the nest of national selfishness among the states that are holding back the takeoff of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

By ensuring that it achieves more convincing and qualitative results in the African integration projects whose gestation and emergence it has supported, the AfDB would also recall that it remains the armed wing of the African Union for the implementation of infrastructure programs on the continent. A status and a responsibility to be honored on a daily basis in the service of Africa and Africans. Under the Tah era, it will be with or without Trump.

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