Africa Charts New Financial Path: Mobilizing Institutional Capital for Self-Reliance
With declining development assistance and a sharp drop in foreign direct investment, Africa’s financial leaders have called for a bold shift toward mobilizing domestic capital to fund critical infrastructure and development projects.
At a high-level side event held during the African Development Bank Group’s 2025 Annual Meetings, experts and policymakers underscored the need to leverage over $2.1 trillion in assets held by Africa’s institutional investors.
The session, themed “Africa’s Financial Sovereignty: Mobilizing Institutional Capital for Development and Resilience,” was convened by the Bank’s Resource Mobilization and Partnerships Department, in partnership with the Making Finance Work for Africa initiative.
“We’re not poor,” said Solomon Quaynor, AfDB Vice-President for Private Sector, Infrastructure & Industrialization. “The real question is how to mobilize our capital at scale for productive, high-impact investments. If just 5% of institutional assets were unlocked, over $100 billion could be made available for long-term development.”
The panel, moderated by Victor Oladokun, Senior Advisor to the AfDB President, featured top financial leaders, including Chinua Azubike (CEO, InfraCredit), Boitumelo Mosako (CEO, DBSA), Denis Charles Kouassi (CEO, Côte d’Ivoire’s National Social Security Fund), Timi Agama (Director General, Nigeria SEC), and Ethiopis Tafara (Vice President, IFC).
Azubike highlighted InfraCredit’s success in mobilizing over $300 million for local infrastructure without losses, while Tafara emphasized the importance of risk-sharing frameworks to improve project bankability.
From regulatory reform to enhanced governance, speakers echoed the urgency of creating enabling environments to attract institutional capital. Mosako noted, “Yes, we need governance and accountability. But as Africans, we also need to learn to trust each other.”
Quaynor concluded with a rallying call: “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.”
The AfDB’s ongoing initiatives, such as the Capital Markets Development Trust Fund, aim to catalyze this shift—signaling a transformative moment in Africa’s push for financial sovereignty.
