Dr Sidi Ould Tah, President of the African Development Bank Group, delivered his first official address to the Conference of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) on Sunday, February 15, 2026. In his speech, he presented the New African Financial Architecture (NAFA) as a strategic lever for large-scale resource mobilization and the foundation for a new African financial sovereignty.

In a speech focused on action, Dr Ould Tah outlined his vision for NAFA, aimed at fundamentally transforming how the continent mobilizes and deploys its resources.

“Africa does not lack ambition. Agenda 2063 gives us a vision. Our national energy pacts, trade agreements, infrastructure frameworks – all of this provides us with plans,” emphasized Dr Ould Tah, who assumed office on September 1 as the ninth President of the African Development Bank Group. “The problem is not a lack of resources. It is the architecture of risk and capital,” he stressed.

He explained that the Bank Group’s new vision, anchored in the Four Cardinal Points with NAFA as a central pillar, will enable the continent to shift paradigms and efficiently implement the priorities of Agenda 2063. The Four Cardinal Points, the Bank Group’s strategic framework, are designed to:

• Unlock Africa’s capital potential, enabling savings and institutional funds to finance continental development.

• Rebuild Africa’s financial sovereignty, with NAFA as the central instrument for mobilizing and deploying resources at scale and strengthening Africa’s position in global financial governance.

• Turn demographics into an economic dividend, by supporting youth and women entrepreneurship and developing regional value chains.

• Build resilient, high-value infrastructure, to accelerate industrialization and foster continental economic integration.

“NAFA is not a slogan. It is a deliberate reorganization of how Africa mobilizes, allocates, and deploys capital for development – moving from fragmentation to coordination, from isolated transactions to systemic scale, and from dependence on external capital to financial sovereignty,” Dr Ould Tah insisted.

The 39th AU Summit, held over February 14–15, focused on the theme: “Ensuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063.” During the summit, Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye was elected the new Chairperson of the African Union for 2026, succeeding Angolan President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço.

In a statement on the AU’s “key continental initiatives,” African leaders congratulated President Ould Tah on his election to the head of the continent’s principal financial institution, describing it as a reflection of his ability to guide the Bank in pursuing Africa’s integration and transformation agenda.

Heads of state and government also welcomed the strategic orientation of President Ould Tah, anchored in the Four Cardinal Points and NAFA, and requested a progress report on the operationalization of NAFA within the next six months.