Mariam DIAWARA

Mariam Diawara is a senior executive with over 25 years of leadership and experience in International Finance Institutions and international law firms. She has extensive diverse cross-sectoral experience in public and private sector lending, international dispute resolution and the sanctions systems of multilateral development banks.

Currently, she serves as the Executive Secretary of the African Development Bank Group’s (AfDB) Sanctions Appeals Board (SAB) and the Acting Director for the Bank Group’s Independent Recourse Mechanism (IRM), a role she assumed in September 2024. She previously served as Chief Legal Counsel and Principal Legal Counsel in the Bank Group’s Legal Department managing development projects in energy and multinational road projects across more than ten of the Bank’s regional countries. A French Attorney by training, she started her career as a lawyer in various renowned law firms in France and managed her own law firm for seven years.

Mariam is an active member in the international arbitration community. She is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb, London, UK), and the African Arbitration Association. She holds a master’s degree in international business law and management from ESSEC Business School (Cergy-Pontoise, France), a postgraduate degree in International Administration and a Diploma in Business Law from the University of Paris 2 (Pantheon-Assas, France). She is a French and Malian national.