As global capital flows evolve and development assistance dwindles, Africa finds itself at a critical point. On 28 May, during the African Development Bank Group’s 2025
Annual Meetings (www.AfDB.org [6]), senior leaders, policymakers and
financial experts gathered to chart a new course for the continent’s
financial future – one based on mobilizing and deploying African
resources and ingenuity.
Organized by the Bank Group’s Resource Mobilization and Partnerships
Department, in collaboration with the Bank’s _Making Finance Work for
Africa _initiative, this side event brought together leading African
experts in a conversation moderated by Victor Oladokun, Senior Advisor
to the President of the African Development Bank Group for Communication
and Stakeholder Engagement.
With a 10 percent decline in development assistance and a 12 percent
drop in foreign direct investment to USD 40 billion {in what period, and
what’s the source of the data?}, the urgency of mobilizing domestic
resources is pressing. The continent faces an annual infrastructure
funding gap of between USD 68 billion and USD 108 billion, while
attracting only 2 percent of global investment in this sector {Source?}.
“The real question is not whether the capital exists – it does. The
question is how to mobilize it on a large scale for productive,
high-impact investments,” said Solomon Quaynor, the African Development
Bank Group’s Vice-President for Private Sector, Infrastructure &
Industrialization.
He added, “Africa is not poor. Our institutional investors – pension
funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, and even central
banks – together manage more than USD 2.1 trillion in assets. If just
5 percent of these funds were directed towards infrastructure and the
private sector, it would unlock more than USD 100 billion in long-term
capital for the continent.”
The event highlighted some innovative African-led models for mobilizing
institutional capital. For example, InfraCredit Nigeria, a pioneering
credit enhancement institution, has secured more than USD 300 million in
long-term financing in local currency for infrastructure projects.
“The real risk associated with infrastructure assets is often
overestimated. We have not recorded any losses on a portfolio of more
than 20 projects in 12 sectors in eight years,” said Chinua Azubike, CEO
of InfraCredit.
Tafara Ethiopis, Vice President of the International Finance Corporation
(IFC, the World Bank’s private-sector arm) for Africa, emphasized the
need to strengthen the bankability of projects through more effective
risk-sharing mechanisms. “It is essential to calibrate the distribution
of risks and benefits between the public and private sectors properly to
make projects bankable,” he said.
Speakers also identified obstacles to mobilizing institutional capital
and proposed solutions. Boitumelo Mosako, CEO of the Development Bank of
Southern Africa (DBSA), highlighted the central role of good governance
and rigorous project preparation in lowering risk and improving investor
confidence.
The Director General of Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), Timi Agama, stressed the importance of building trust through
regulatory reforms, investor protection and financial education.
Denis Charles Kouassi, CEO of Côte d’Ivoire’s National Social
Security Fund, underscored the importance of aligning pension funds with
national development priorities, saying, _”_All the income we generate
is reinvested directly into the national economy to finance our services
and boost growth.”
The Resource Mobilization and Partnerships Department of the African
Development Bank Group is leading several initiatives aimed at
mobilizing African institutional capital, including through instruments
such as the Capital Markets Development Trust Fund, and strategic
partnerships with regional and global stakeholders.
“Yes, we need governance and accountability. But as Africans, we also
need to learn to trust each other,” said Mosako.
“The moment calls for vision. It also calls for innovation. And above
all, it calls for action,” Quaynor affirmed, in his concluding
remarks. “Let us pool our capital, our ideas, and our will, to build
an Africa where infrastructure becomes a lever for prosperity, not a
drag on it.”
