LONDON, May 26 (Reuters) - Five candidates are running

to become President of the African Development Bank in an

election on Thursday during the lender's annual meeting in

Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Tectonic shifts in global development finance with shrinking

concessional funding, cuts to wealthy countries' aid spending

and whipsawing borrowing costs have made the bank's $318 billion

capital more crucial to Africa's development.

Who are they and what do they want to do?

SWAZI TSHABALALA BAJABULILE

A banker with 30 years of experience, Tshabalala was, until

October, AfDB's senior vice president.

The South African, and sole female candidate, plans to

transform the bank if she takes the helm.

"The internal structure of the institution ... doesn't

facilitate the right sort of sustained focus to be able to

really deliver effectively on things like infrastructure," she

said. "We really should consolidate that."

Tshabalala said if delivered properly, infrastructure would

allow Africa to tap its resources - from minerals to finance to

trade. She wants to create innovative financial instruments,

building on the AfDB's foray into hybrid capital.

AMADOU HOTT

Senegal's former economy minister has decades of banking

experience from Lagos to London.

He would focus the AfDB on African financial self-reliance

by mobilising resources and designing projects to keep private

money on the continent.

"Revenue mobilization is number one," he said.

Hott said revenue collection must rise - the average tax to

GDP ratio in Africa is 16%, versus the OECD average of 34% -

which could boost credit ratings, lower borrowing costs and

marshal money for pressing needs, including power and

infrastructure.

"The money is out there," he said, adding that a lack of

ready-made well-structured projects that mitigated risks and

delivered returns had hamstrung private sector mobilization.

SAMUEL MUNZELE MAIMBO

A current World Bank vice president, the Zambian has three

decades of development finance experience.

As president, he would launch behind-the-scenes work to

aggregate data, fix the financial plumbing and streamline

regulations to enable Africa's 54 nations to trade with - and

finance - each other.

"Now more than ever before, we've got to get trade working

on the continent," he said. "If we're only trading 15% of our

products amongst each other, our products are either rotting or

they're being undervalued."

Maimbo - who has the backing of the Southern African

Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and

Southern Africa - wants a continent-wide approach to everything

from debt sustainability to revenue collection and

infrastructure.

SIDI OULD TAH

Mauritania's ex-finance minister and presidential adviser

has run the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa for the

past decade.

"The AfDB must break free from legacy constraints and

position itself as the driver of Africa's economic sovereignty,"

Tah said.

He is focused on four points: mobilising a broader scope of

capital, reforming financial systems, harnessing demographics by

formalising the "informal sector" that employs 83% of Africans

and building climate-resilient infrastructure.

By partnering with the private sector, other multilateral

institutions and regional development banks, the AfDB can turn

every $1 raised into $10 of productive capital, he said.

ABBAS MAHAMAT TOLLI

Tolli has held top financial positions across Central Africa,

including as Chad's finance minister, regional central bank

governor and president of the Development Bank of Central

African States.

He focuses on self-sufficiency, from agriculture to finance,

and wants to strengthen governance to cut inefficient,

untransparent spending that has mired countries in debt without

development.

Africa suffers a lot of financial outflows due to fiscal

evasion or mismanagement of resources, he said, adding "we need

to better manage."

To make it work, Tolli envisions a "major overhaul" of the

AfDB's operational model by pooling risk, strengthening

public-private partnerships and digitizing financing mechanisms.

Tolli said his own life - tending goats as a child after

fleeing civil war aged 6 - mirrored Africa's journey and gave

him unique insight into how to lift all those on the continent.