Ivory Coast’s Wautabouna Ouattara has become the third director for Sub-Saharan Africa on the International Monetary Fund’s executive board as the lender of last resort boosts the region’s voice in its policy making processes.

The new position on the executive board, which oversees the day-to-day business of the fund, brings the total number of executive board members to 25. The addition of a third African chair to our Board reflects the continent’s tremendous progress in developing its human and economic potential,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement on Friday.

The formal ascension of an extra representative for the region to the board followed an election, the IMF said. It is its first expansion since 1992, when two posts were created for the former Soviet Union countries after the break-up of the Soviet bloc.

Africa’s 54 countries, the biggest bloc by number of countries among the IMF’s 191 members, hosts 18% of the world’s population but only holds 6.5% of IMF voting rights. Sub-Saharan Africa’s voting share accounts for around half of that.