Sidi Ould Tah: speeches

1. Praise for Côte d'Ivoire and the national plan

Speaking in Abidjan as a group of advisers on raising money for Côte d'Ivoire's 2026-2030 national plan was launched, African Development Bank President Sidi Ould Tah thanked the host country for housing the bank and praised President Ouattara's transformation of the economy: average growth above 6% over a decade, controlled inflation, fiscal consolidation, a better business climate and major infrastructure. The 2021-2025 plan delivered gains in infrastructure, access to electricity and water, agriculture and inclusive growth despite shocks. The new plan has six pillars covering peace, agriculture, private investment, people and jobs, infrastructure and climate resilience, and governance, with priorities of industrialisation, jobs for young people and women, and a green transition.

2. The bank's commitment

Guided by its four cornerstones and the New African Financial Architecture, the bank pledged to help mobilise resources across public projects, private initiatives and public-private partnerships, using lending, guarantees, private capital instruments and technical support.

1. Four paradoxes

Addressing the IMF and World Bank African Caucus in Banjul, African Development Bank President Sidi Ould Tah thanked The Gambia for its reforms and its early pledge to the Fund's seventeenth replenishment, the largest ever, and described Africa as a rising growth frontier with twelve of the twenty fastest-growing economies. He named four paradoxes: size without influence (18% of people, over 30% of mineral reserves, but about 3% of trade and output); financing (over 400 billion dollars a year needed while over 4 trillion sits in African banks, pension funds and insurers); opportunity (only about 6% of global investment inflows, held back by perceived risk and a guarantee gap near 50 billion dollars); and fragmentation (intra-African trade of 16% against nearly 60% in Asia).

2. The four cardinal points

The bank's strategy answers each: mobilise capital at scale by leveraging and de-risking; consolidate Africa's more than 100 small development finance institutions under the New African Financial Architecture; harness the demographic dividend through skills, jobs and support for small firms, since 60% of people are under 25; and build resilient infrastructure and local value addition, instead of exporting raw materials and importing them refined. The Senegambia Bridge shows how recycling an asset's value attracts institutional investors.

3. Four messages

To African governments: he praised debt management efforts and a South African-led borrowers' club, and urged support for turning the continental guarantee agency ATIDI into a larger pan-African mechanism, where the bank has multiplied its stake fivefold. To the IMF: after three successive shocks, Africa needs flexibility, fresh concessional resources and more channelled special drawing rights, citing research that each dollar spent on conflict prevention can save up to 103. To the World Bank: continued support for IDA and joint initiatives. To all partners: trade and investment rather than aid, delivered with speed, scale, synergy and shared prosperity.

1. Brazzaville and a listening tour

Opening the African Development Bank Group's 2026 annual meetings in Brazzaville, its President thanked the Congolese head of state, praised his decision to lift visa requirements for all Africans from 2027 and highlighted the Congo Basin as one of the planet's major carbon sinks. A year after his election, he said he had spent his first months consulting governments, staff, investors and young entrepreneurs, and heard one message: Africa's ambitions now exceed the financial system meant to support them.

2. Three paradoxes

Africa has about 18% of the world's people, over 30% of its mineral reserves and over 60% of unused farmland, yet only about 3% of world trade and 3-4% of output. It needs more than $400 billion a year for structural change while holding over $4 trillion in domestic savings. Infrastructure alone requires $130-170 billion a year, with a gap of $68-108 billion, despite major openings in energy, logistics, digital networks, food and critical minerals. The issue is converting assets into investment, jobs and influence.

3. A changed world

The pandemic, wars, imported inflation, falling aid and higher interest rates have strained African economies, but the continent has become central to trade routes, energy and minerals. IMF projections show African growth comparable to Asia's, digital tools and the continental free trade area are widening markets, and young entrepreneurs use AI in farming, health and education. Their innovations still struggle to scale because finance has not kept pace.

4. A new financial architecture

Fragmentation means African savings rarely fund African projects; investors buy instruments, not projects. The NAFAD framework backed by the Abidjan Consensus aims to align existing institutions to mobilise savings, reduce perceived risk and deepen capital markets, without adding bureaucracy. He insisted that financial sovereignty is built through stronger markets and coordination rather than declared, and that the bank, created for an era of sovereign loans and aid, must adapt to a world shaped by private capital, technology and regional integration. The bank's strategy follows four priorities: cheaper and larger capital flows, stronger connected financial systems, turning a young population into an economic advantage, especially for youth and women, and building infrastructure and value chains so Africa stops exporting raw materials and importing prosperity.

5. From lender to catalyst

The African Development Fund's 17th replenishment raised a record $11 billion, up 23%, with 24 African countries contributing about $183 million, twenty for the first time. Only one project in ten reaches financial close, so guarantees and risk sharing are key; the bank became the largest shareholder of the regional trade and investment insurance agency ATIDI with 14%. Twelve to fifteen million young people join the labour market each year, and small firms in the missing middle need patient finance, energy and skills. All African financial institutions must work together.

6. Reforming the bank

Seven reform pillars should make the bank faster and simpler, moving from single projects to integrated platforms, and a Portuguese-speaking service hub will be created. He argued that Africa's risks are overestimated and its value underestimated, joking that Africans recycled and shared taxis long before these became fashionable business models.

1. Thanks and strategic direction

Closing the bank's annual meetings in Brazzaville, President Sidi Ould Tah thanked the Congo's president and people for the welcome and praised the presidential dialogue as a political highlight. He said the strong support received for his reform agenda is now the compass of his mandate, that results exceeded expectations, and that the week set in motion dynamics of action, transformation and integration, with Africa at a turning point and the free trade area as its macroeconomic instrument.

2. Concrete results

He saluted the Congolese president's decision to lift visa requirements for all Africans from 1 January 2027 as a step moving integration from words to reality. A session on the Congo Basin's blue fund drew nearly three billion dollars in pledges, a historic first, for 17 countries. A meeting with civil society, philanthropists and the diaspora stressed women's empowerment, youth jobs, support for small firms and universal access to basic services. Angola confirmed 6.5 million euros for the seventeenth African Development Fund, bringing African contributors to 25 and over 190 million dollars. Quoting a Congolese poet, he said the continent's question mark is becoming an exclamation mark of ambition, confidence and action.