Raising capital was the first major challenge facing Sidi Ould Tah, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), when he was elected in May. Part of Ould Tah’s appeal was his previous role as head of the Banque Arabe pour le Développement Économique en Afrique (BADEA) and the prospect of his being able to secure funding from the Gulf.

The faith of delegates – 76% of whom backed him – has already been rewarded. On 16 December, the African Development Fund, the AfDB’s soft loan affiliate, secured a record US$11 billion from its 17th Replenishment Conference in London. That includes $800 million from BADEA and $2bn from the OPEC Fund for International Development, representing a 23% increase on the previous summit in 2022. The replenishment summit was co-hosted by Ghana and the United Kingdom: the latter has imposed some of the deepest development budget cuts of any western country. By 2029, its development spending will have more than halved over the course of a decade.

Shrinking aid budgets – the OECD estimates that they fell by up to 17% in 2025 on top of a 9% drop in 2024 – mean that development finance institutions, of which the AfDB is Africa’s largest, will have to take up the slack. Ould Tah plans a major expansion of AfDB lending, leveraging the bank’s balance sheet and increasing the risk profile of its portfolio. The new cash is a good start.