- IMF names Zeine Zeidane to lead Africa Department as Abebe Selassie retires
The International Monetary Fund is set to appoint Zeine Zeidane as director of its African Department, handing one of the institution’s most strategically important roles to a veteran policymaker with profound experience in both African economic management and IMF reform.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Mr. Zeidane would succeed Abebe Aemro Selassie, who retires from the Fund on May 1, at a time when sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the institution’s most demanding regions for policy advice, concessional financing, and capacity development.
The appointment places a former Mauritanian prime minister and central bank governor at the helm of the IMF’s engagement with a region still grappling with debt stress, climate shocks, weak fiscal buffers, and the after-effects of multiple global crises.
Madam Georgieva said Mr. Zeidane would bring “deep institutional knowledge, sound judgement, and strong policymaking experience” to the role, signalling continuity but also a more explicitly policy-driven leadership profile for the department.
A Mauritanian national, Mr Zeidane currently serves as deputy director in the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, where he has overseen the Fund’s work with major Gulf economies and helped deepen ties with regional partners, including through the establishment of the IMF’s regional office in Riyadh in 2024.
But his links to Africa inside the Fund run deeper. Before moving to the Middle East department, he served as a deputy director in the African Department, where he was involved in some of the IMF’s largest and most complex engagements on the continent. He also helped shape reforms to concessional lending and the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust during the pandemic, both of which were central to the Fund’s support for vulnerable African economies.
The African Department has become increasingly central to the IMF’s global role as more African countries turn to the Fund for financing, debt restructuring support, and macroeconomic stabilisation. From Ghana and Zambia to Ethiopia and Rwanda, the region has become one of the clearest testing grounds for how the Fund balances adjustment with growth and social stability.
Mr Zeidane’s earlier work in the Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, including on the IMF’s 2018 Governance Policy, also suggests an appointment shaped not only by crisis management but by institutional reform experience.
Before joining the IMF in 2012, he held some of the most senior economic positions in Mauritania, serving as prime minister, governor of the central bank, and economic adviser to the president. He also worked with the World Bank and in commercial banking, giving him a mix of government, multilateral, and market experience that is likely to be closely watched by African policymakers.
For the Fund, the leadership transition arrives at a delicate moment. Many African economies remain heavily exposed to tighter global financing conditions, commodity volatility, and geopolitical shocks, even as calls grow for more tailored IMF engagement and greater sensitivity to development priorities. The choice of Mr Zeidane suggests the Fund wants a leader who understands both the politics and the technicalities of economic adjustment in Africa.
