The African Development Bank is preparing to select a new president at a meeting in Ivory Coast this week. The new leader is going to be charged with navigating the continent’s biggest multilateral lender through the aftereffects of funding cuts.
This meeting is considered one of the biggest finance meetings on the continent as it features a gathering of heads of state and finance officials. It will be taking place in Abidjan. Akinwumi Adesina, the current president, will step down in September after serving the maximum of two five-year terms, and five candidates from South Africa, Senegal, Zambia, Chad, and Mauritania are competing to succeed him.
The candidates include SWAZI TSHABALALA BAJABULILE Tshabalala, a 30-year veteran banker, who served as AfDB’s senior vice president until October. If elected, the South African, the only female candidate, intends to revolutionize the bank. 
MADOU HOTT, the former economy minister of Senegal, has worked in banking for decades, from Lagos to London.
He would mobilize resources and create projects to retain private funds on the continent, concentrating the AfDB on African financial self-reliance.
MAIMBO, SAMUEL MUNZELE, the Zambian, who has thirty years of experience in development finance, is a World Bank vice president on leave during his campaign. To allow Africa’s 54 countries to trade and fund one another, he would start behind-the-scenes efforts as president to compile data, repair the financial infrastructure, and simplify laws.
SIDI OULD TAH, For the past ten years, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa has been led by the former finance minister and presidential adviser of Mauritania.
“The AfDB must break free from legacy constraints and position itself as the driver of Africa’s economic sovereignty,” Tah stated.
ABBAS MAHAMAT TOLLI, has served in high-level financial roles in Central Africa, such as president of the Development Bank of Central African States, regional central bank governor, and finance minister of Chad.
From agriculture to finance, he emphasizes self-sufficiency and seeks to improve governance in order to reduce wasteful, opaque expenditure that has left nations in debt without progress.
The winner will be revealed on Thursday, The winner must receive at least 50.01% of the votes cast by the bank’s 54 African member states and a second vote from all 81 members, including non-African ones.
Owned by 54 African states and G7 countries like the United States and Japan, the African Development Bank (AfDB) is the continent’s largest development financing organization with $318 billion in capital. Nigeria is its largest shareholder.
