Author: Adama WADE

In Cotonou, on March 21st, there was something almost counterintuitive in this packed Congress Palace. Presenting his society project for the upcoming presidential election on April 12th, Romuald Wadagni, the man of great balances, the minister who spent a decade talking about debt, sovereign signature, budget credibility, tax reforms, and fiscal discipline, chose not to focus on finance and debt. Or rather, to only talk about it indirectly. The finance minister, crowned for the first time as the best African Finance Minister by Financial Afrik in 2018, way before the IMF and the World Bank followed the trend, places health…

Kateb Yacine had found the right formula: the French language is our war booty. An inheritance born of the violence of history, certainly, but has become, whether we like it or not, a pillar of our cultural and intellectual reality. Pretending today to ignore it is less a surge of identity than a posture. Our two Francophone writers, Gaston Kelman and Mbarek Beyrouk, met in Nouakchott, each testify in their own way: Francophonie is neither a bloc nor a colonial nostalgia, but a living space, crossed by tensions, appropriations, and reinventions. Because finally, if we follow Amin Maalouf, for whom…

“Simplicity, Accessibility, and Trust: the three pillars of SUNU’s roadmap in Guinea” Heading the two subsidiaries of SUNU Assurances in Guinea since April 2025, Mariame Bah Barry, General Manager of SUNU Assurances in Guinea, is driving a transformative change in a still immature market. Between mass education through the “Assurance C’Simple” campaign and digital acceleration driven by the MySUNU application, she is redefining the standards of proximity and trust. With a sharp expertise in actuarial science and management, she aims to reconcile sustainable growth, financial inclusion, and technical rigor in a rapidly changing competitive environment. You took over the leadership…

“The difficulty for women often lies in guilt” Business lawyer at the Thiam & Associates firm, registered at the Paris Bar, Stephanie Manguele works on complex financing, infrastructure, and energy projects in Africa. In this interview, she talks about her career, analyzes the mechanisms that still hinder women’s access to decision-making positions in business law, and shares her vision of clear, demanding, and assumed leadership in a strategic sector for the continent’s development. Can you first talk about your career and what led you to business law in Africa? Today, I am a business lawyer at Thiam & Associates, focusing…

In an interview with Financial Afrik on March 5, 2026, university professor and international expert Abderrahmane MEBTOUL discusses the impacts of tensions in the Middle East based on conservative assumptions. What is the current state of energy in the Middle East and Africa? The energy landscape in the Middle East and Africa is dominated by significant hydrocarbon reserves, giving these regions major strategic importance in the global energy balance. According to Oil & Gas Journal, Middle Eastern countries hold some of the largest oil reserves on the planet. Saudi Arabia leads with 267.19 billion barrels, followed by Iran (200 billion),…

The Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) continues the operational deployment of its new instant payments infrastructure, called PI-SPI (Instant Payment – Instant Payment System). In an update published since February 24, 2026, the monetary institution has made public the list of establishments authorized to offer these services to the public in the WAEMU area. This list reflects a gradual increase in the device and the adherence of an increasing number of banking actors, fintechs, and mobile money operators to the new regional real-time payment system. A system already deployed throughout the Union According to data published by the…

The law firms ASAFO & CO. and Stork Avocats announced on February 19, 2026, the merger of their activities, marked by the integration of the Stork Avocats team within the Paris office of ASAFO & CO. This operation strengthens the position of the combined teams among the leading players in the field of major projects...

According to information obtained by Financial Afrik, Aline Yonta Kenge has been appointed Managing Director of BGFIBank Senegal, replacing Khady Boye Hanne, who has been the Managing Director since 2020. This appointment, subject to approval by supervisory authorities, comes at a time of significant restructuring in the Senegalese banking landscape and reflects the group’s desire...

The Ivorian insurance market confirms its strength and depth in 2025. The aggregated turnover of the sector reaches around 774 billion CFA francs, compared to nearly 720 billion CFA francs in 2024, representing an estimated annual growth of +7.5%. This clear and structural growth occurs in an environment marked by more demanding economic choices and...

Abidjan – The case between the financial institution FIDELIS Finance and the Ivorian SME SOGETRA has reached a decisive legal stage. According to official documents consulted by Financial Afrik, the investigating judge in charge of the case issued, on January 15, 2026, an order referring the case to the criminal court. This decision, confirming the...

At the end of a competitive process initiated since 2023, the Portuguese public bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) has sold 100% of its 59.81% stake in Banco Comercial do Atlântico (BCA) to the Coris Group. The operation was approved by the Portuguese Council of Ministers as well as by the State of Cape Verde,...

Whatever the outcome of the DR Congo–Algeria match played on January 6 in Rabat, it can safely be said that it will be controversial. Not for strictly sporting reasons, but because it carries a heavy emotional, historical, and political charge specific to two peoples forged by struggle, rent, and disillusionment. Football and collective memory intertwine...

BGFI Holding Corporation, the parent company of the BGFIBank group, announced the extension of the subscription period for its initial public offering on the BVMAC. The decision to postpone the IPO, which consists of a total offering of 125.9 billion CFA francs, was taken in accordance with regulatory provisions, in consultation with market authorities and...

Acted upon since October 2024, the handover at the helm of the Duval Group between Éric Duval and his son Louis-Victor Duval, 33, is not just a simple family succession. It marks the beginning of a deep reorganization of the group’s governance and strategic priorities, with Africa emerging as one of the main areas of...

Lomé, Togo – Financial Afrik has learned from several familiar sources with the matter that an internal alert was filed in mid-November within Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), the holding company based in Lomé that oversees the entire Ecobank group. The report would have come from a staff member, or potentially a small group of employees,...

A legal proceeding opposes Fidelis Finance Burkina Faso to the Ivorian company SOGETRA. The case, now in the hands of justice, could lead to the first criminal precedent regarding the violation of banking secrecy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). Four senior executives, as well as the financial institution itself as a...

At the outset, Sendou was supposed to be a symbol of energy sovereignty: 125 MW of baseload power, capable of reducing power outages and boosting Senegal’s industrial growth. Twenty years later, the ambition has dissolved into a labyrinth of offshore shareholders, scattered between Cyprus, Mauritius, Malta, London, Stockholm, and Tel Aviv, to the point that...

With a strategy focused on financial education, digital innovation, expanding product offerings, and advocating for tax and regulatory reforms, NSIA Asset Management aims to play a leading role in mobilizing African savings and directing them towards the real economy. This is what its CEO, Franck Olivier Diagou, stated on November 4, 2025, on the sidelines of the fifth edition of the Africa Financial Summit (AFIS). Interview. AFIS 2025 has emphasized the mobilization of African savings. What initiatives is NSIA Asset Management preparing to accelerate the mobilization of local savings, especially among the middle class, SMEs, and institutional investors? The first…

While seeking 30 billion CFA francs (54 million dollars) to finance part of its budget, Ivory Coast rejected 86 billion CFA francs (155 million dollars) during its issuance of Assimilable Treasury Bills (BAT) for 28 days, held on Tuesday, November 25, 2025 on the UMOA financial market. Despite an initial solicitation of 30 billion, investors...

No deadlock between Gabon and the IMF. According to authoritative sources at the Ministry of Finance, Libreville and the Bretton Woods institution have agreed on a schedule for the presentation, by the end of 2026, of consolidated economic data, especially those from the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years, essential for monitoring the structural reforms initiated...

On November 18, 2025, the President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, H.E. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, received Constant Nemale, the founder and president of the Africa24 group, in Malabo. This meeting marks a symbolic reunion after a period of distance between two personalities who were behind the launch of Africa 24 in 2008 as a tool for promoting the Pan-African vision, which has become a leading media outlet on Africa over the past 17 years. Over the years, differences had emerged regarding the editorial and strategic direction of Africa24. It was criticized from Malabo for having strayed from the…

The Atlantic city of Dakhla, located 1695 km from Rabat, hosted an international conference on November 6, 2025, dedicated to the theme “The Moroccan Sahara: a strategic gateway of the Royal Initiative for the Atlantic Africa”, organized by the Council of the Commune of Dakhla, the International Diplomatic Center, the African Center for Strategic Intelligence, and the United Nations University for Peace in Dakar. The event, held in the context of the 50th anniversary of the Green March, concluded with an “Africa-Atlantic Declaration” that synthesizes the current state of the Sahara issue, international positions, and ongoing transformations in the Southern…

Es-Semara was once thought to be condemned to sand and the memory of caravans; now it is propelled to the status of a Moroccan geo-economic outpost, on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the Green March. In this city located 200 kilometers east of Laâyoune, where salt, gold, and gum arabic were once traded, a more structuring project is now taking shape: to restore sovereign access to the Atlantic for the Sahel, by connecting Es-Semara to Zoueratt and then to the Sahelian heart — Timbuktu, Bamako, Niamey, N’Djamena.At the center of this story is a simple equation that diplomatic…

The latest developments coming from Bamako, Kayes, and Timbuktu are chilling. The dreadful Islamists of the JNIM are advancing in the countryside, blocking strategic roads, and depriving urban centers of fuel. In these grave hours, it is clear that the African Union’s statement expressing concern over the situation is the bare minimum. What then can...

The fifth edition of the Africa Financial Industry Summit (AFIS) opened on November 3 in Casablanca with a clear statement: “Africa does not have a capital problem,” said its initiator, Amir Ben Yahmed, CEO of Jeune Afrique Group. The continent has resources, savings, and investors. What is still lacking is the ability to mobilize this capital, structure large-scale projects, create endogenous guarantee mechanisms, and, above all, believe in its own potential. In a global environment marked by geopolitical tensions, persistent financial volatility, reduced budget margins, and the emergence of artificial intelligence as a systemic disruption, IFC Managing Director Mathar Diop…

Photo caption: The successive presidents of Afreximbank gathered in Cairo: Christopher Edordu, Jean-Louis Ekra, Benedict Oramah, and George Elombi – four leaders, four generations of a shared Pan-African vision of finance and trade. On October 24, 2025, in Cairo, Professor Benedict Oramah delivered his final speech as president of Afreximbank, thirty-one years after joining the institution he helped shape. In a dense speech, filled with history and strategic insight, he took stock of the bank, its projects, and its contradictions. “Our philosophy was based on the conviction that the only viable path for the development and economic empowerment of Africa…

Cairo, October 24, 2025. When Zimbabwe, ravaged by hyperinflation, burdened with debt, and under international sanctions, saw all international financial institutions turn their backs, one remained: Afreximbank. Under the leadership of Benedict Oramah, who bids farewell to the bank on October 24, 2025 in Cairo, the institution founded in 1993 has emerged as the financial pillar of economic pan-Africanism, embodying a simple and powerful idea: African risk deserves to be taken on by Africans themselves. A decade of strategic transformation Assuming the presidency in 2015, Benedict Oramah transformed Afreximbank from an import-export bank into a continental development bank. The year…

Facts: Mauritius was officially chosen at the end of September 2025 by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to host the headquarters of the Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA). This decision follows the approval, in July 2024 during the 44th ordinary session of the African Union, of the creation of an independent African rating agency,...

Mobile Money, XAF/XOF convergence and single approval: the governor shares his vision In an exclusive interview with Financial Afrik, Yvon SANA BANGUI, the Governor of the Central African States Bank (BEAC), reflects on the major projects shaping the monetary and financial future of the CEMAC zone. From the rise of Mobile Money to the reform of the single banking approval, and the discussions on the convergence of the XAF/XOF CFA francs, he shares his strategic vision and outlines a financial system that is more resilient, inclusive, and adapted to contemporary challenges. Mr. Governor, you recently conducted a working visit to…

The giant SanlamAllianz, resulting from the merger between South African Sanlam and German Allianz, is preparing to sell its Nigerien subsidiary, according to exclusive information from Financial Afrik. A key player in Niamey, SanlamAllianz Niger ranks in the top 5 of the local market. The negotiation process is expected to pave the way for Vista...