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Fatimatou Zahra Diop

Member

Fatimatou Diop is the former Secretary General of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), where she spent 35 years of her career. She has extensive experience in financial regulation, payment system reform, public-private partnership, and development finance more broadly in West Africa and on the continent.

At the BCEAO, Ms. Diop was responsible for the coordination and successful management of the BCEAO in its eight member countries as well as its offices in Dakar and Paris. Her previous position was as the National Director of Senegal, where she led the Senegalese branch of the Central Bank. She also served as Director for Payment System Reforms, where she designed and implemented a system for large value payments, an automated clearing system, a card-based interbank payment system, a telecommunications network, and a new legal and regulatory framework ensuring security within the new system.

After her tenure as Secretary General, she was a director for six years at the International Finance Facility for Immunisation, the multilateral development institution providing predictable, long-term funds for the GAVI Alliance. She also co-founded Afrivac, a public-private partnership whose mission is to work with public and private sector partners to promote the need to strengthen the budgets of African countries with a view toward becoming independent from multilateral support. She serves as Vice President of its Board of Directors. Apart from being a member of various Board of Directors, she is also Member of the Board of Directors of Women Investment Club (WIC) Capital, a syndicate equity fund dedicated to women entrepreneurs.

Ms. Diop holds a master’s degree in Economics from Cheikh Anta Diop University as well as a post-graduate degree from the Centre Ouest-Africain de Formation et d’Etudes Bancaires (COFEB).

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