Five candidates vying to lead the African Development Bank made their pitches at a public forum recently, offering competing visions for the institution’s future just weeks before a closed-door election to decide its next president.
Hosted by the Brookings Institution on the sidelines of the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C., the event marked the first public discussion between all five contenders: Amadou Hott of Senegal, Samuel Munzele Maimbo of Zambia, Sidi Ould Tah of Mauritania, Abbas Mahamat Tolli of Chad, and Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala of South Africa.
They are all seeking to replace Akinwumi Adesina, who has served as AfDB president since 2015 and will step down as his second five-year term ends. The bank’s board of governors — composed of finance ministers and other representatives from AfDB member countries — will vote on May 29, and the new president is set to start on Sept. 1.
AfDB, founded in 1964 and headquartered in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, has 81 member countries and an authorized capital of $318 billion as of 2024.
The leadership change comes at a time when Western donors, including the United States and several European countries, are cutting foreign aid budgets, leaving many African nations scrambling to fill gaps and fund public services such as health care, education, and social welfare. That means the bank’s importance is only growing as the continent looks to shift from aid dependency to faster, more resilient economic growth.
Each candidate highlighted their leadership credentials and proposed reforms to reshape the bank in response to the continent’s evolving development needs.
Tshabalala, currently the bank’s senior vice president, argued for infrastructure-led regional integration. “Closing this infrastructure gap will facilitate greater regional integration … especially to leverage the [African] Continental Free Trade Area and also to create jobs,” she said.
Africa’s debt
On addressing Africa’s growing debt burden, she added, “We must work with countries … to ensure that their debt is used for investment, not for consumption, because investment is what will generate a future income.” As of the end of 2023, Africa’s total debt burden was over $1 trillion, and the median public debt was around 65% of gross domestic product.
Maimbo, a former World Bank official and current AfDB vice president for regional development, emphasized the need for more transparency and realism in strategic planning.
“I will not be issuing a 10-year strategy in my last year of my presidency,” he said. “Instead, I’ll be writing a detailed report of where we succeeded and even more details on where we failed.” He also pushed for more equitable treatment of African debt, saying, “We must broaden [debt] instrument, increase the revenue sources of our governments, [and] reduce the risk premium that we unfairly pay across the continent.”
While Maimbo emphasized accountability and financial reform, other candidates focused on retooling the bank’s internal structure to better deliver on its development mandate. Hott, Senegal’s former minister of economy and planning and a former AfDB vice president, called for structural change within the bank to boost its private sector engagement.
“What I’m proposing is to convert one of the vice presidencies … into a vice presidency dedicated to the private sector … making sure we are more responsive to the private sector and we are mobilizing more resources,” he said.
Institutional reform
Meanwhile, Tah, who heads the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, stressed his track record of institutional reform. “I’m not talking about abstract things,” he said. “We have been able to multiply approvals by 12 in 10 years … and to reduce NPL from more than 10% to less than 0.5%.” He also proposed a guarantee mechanism to support micro, small, and medium enterprises and boost value-added production on the continent.
Building on Tah’s emphasis on operational efficiency and private sector engagement, Tolli highlighted the need for strategic investment in food and energy to drive Africa’s self-reliance and regional integration.
Tolli, currently the governor of the Central Bank of Central African States, shone a spotlight on the importance of food sovereignty.
“We need to work with the member states to make sure that food and agricultural independence becomes a reality,” he said. He also called for renewed focus on energy investments and trade-enabling infrastructure. But for Tolli, internal reform was just as critical: “It’s important to work as a team … and have also internally a culture that is focused on results, impact, and not just on procedures.”
