Source: ForbesAfrica.com
As global capital tightens, African multilateral development finance institutions are turning inward—mobilizing domestic savings, rethinking industrial policy, and building a new ecosystem of patient, locally-anchored capital. In the boardrooms and finance ministries from Cape Town to Cairo, they are the glue holding public policy and private investment together, chaneling good resources to critical sectors–as the ultimate ecosystem-builders.
Swanky new roads, shiny construction sites, and cranes inching skyward mirror the conversation happening across Africa’s financial capitals: how to fund the continent’s next growth chapter without leaning too heavily on the world’s tightening purse strings.
This is where the continent’s pan-African development finance institutions (DFIs) step in, to serenade Africa’s rise, with ambitious blueprints and creative masterplans for transformation.
“The tightening of global capital flows in Africa has been a reality for quite some time. The pressure has intensified in recent years in the polycrisis environment we find ourselves in,” Admassu Tadesse, the Trade and Development Bank Group (TDB Group) President and Managing Director, says to FORBES AFRICA.
For Tadesse, the strain is visible in the rapid retreat of correspondent banks from African markets. He traces the exodus to “pronounced global regulations that impose heavy compliance burdens and related high penalty risks”.
As global lenders step back, African economies are left to navigate what he calls a “complex and adverse global macroeconomic context” defined by rising inflation, elevated interest rates and a reduced appetite for risk among investors focused on emerging and frontier markets.
Thierno-Habib Hann, the Managing Director and CEO of Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB), describes a landscape in which Africa’s DFIs are adjusting to the new world order by focusing on what they can control–at home.
“We are adapting our strategies to address this through governance reforms, recapitalization, and increased focus on domestic resource mobilization,” Hann shares with FORBES AFRICA.
For Hann, this shift is both philosophical and practical. His institution’s ‘New Dawn’ strategy for 2023 to 2027 reflects that repositioning. The plan centers on balance sheet strengthening, strategic restructuring, and the diversification of funding sources so the bank can navigate a more uncertain financial environment. It calls for deeper engagement with domestic institutional investors, from pension funds to insurance companies, and a renewed push to issue local-currency bonds that can ground long-term housing and infrastructure financing.
“In line with regional peers, we are expanding co-financing partnerships with organizations like the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) to mobilize capital for affordable housing and infrastructure projects,” says Hann.
African DFIs, according to him, have a central role in driving the continent’s industrialization, especially in manufacturing, energy, and digital infrastructure. He notes the positioning to act as patient capital providers, market makers, and policy partners to help countries transition from resource dependence to value-added production.
It is a sentiment gaining traction in boardrooms and finance ministries from Cairo to Cape Town. As multilateral development funds become increasingly selective, African DFIs are now the architects of a new financial order rooted in the continent’s own balance sheets.
The Rise Of Africa’s Local Development Banks
Across the continent, national, regional and multilateral DFIs are retooling their mandates, diversifying instruments, and seeking to catalyze private capital rather than merely disburse loans.
At the heart of this transformation is a generational shift in leadership. Many of today’s DFI heads are veterans of both global finance and African development, bridging two worlds that have long operated in parallel. They bring a pragmatic belief that Africa’s growth story must be financed not by external benevolence, but by domestic ingenuity.
Samaila Zubairu, the President and CEO of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), believes domestic capital can support this process if pension laws and governance structures are reformed. He cites AFC research showing $4 trillion in domestic capital pools across Africa and more than $1 trillion in non-bank savings.
For Zubairu, if regulations require pensions to invest in infrastructure equity, infrastructure bonds, private equity and venture capital, liquidity would deepen. And because African investors understand African risk, the high premiums that raise borrowing costs would fall. “African capital and African risk should remove the heavy penalties applied by global markets,’’ he says.
Transformation, he notes, is a way to address the high cost of capital that constrains African governments. He uses simple arithmetic to show how value creation strengthens public finances. “To move from the ores or the raw material to the finished goods is 10 times value,” he says. In some cases, the increase is 20 times. He offers an example. “Exporting a product at $100 yields $10 at a 10% royalty. Exporting a processed version at $1,000 yields $100. Imagine the cumulative impact of that on the government’s tax revenues and its ability to manage its finances without borrowing,” he says.
Partnerships are central to this strategy. As Chairman of the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions (AAMFI), Zubairu oversees a coalition that includes the AFC, Afreximbank, TDB Group, African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re), African Trade and Investment Development Insurance (ATIDI), ShafDB, East African Development Bank (EADB), Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), African Solidarity Fund (ASF), and ZEP-RE (PTA Reinsurance Company).
“The African Union recognizes the alliance and supports its growth. Together, the institutions have provided a financing package of $1.5 billion to the African Union Development Agency–NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD). The idea is that each of us, as members, would lead an initiative and then work with the rest of the club to finance the opportunities,” he shares.
In Tadesse’s view, the mandate of multilateral development banks (MDBs) remains constant even when the world around them becomes more volatile.
“To promote sustainable development and economic resilience, MDBs like ourselves have a duty to be responsive to strategic imperatives and be agile as we deliver on our mandate,” he says.
It was in this context, Tadesse shares, his institution has undertaken reforms and innovated into a “mature’’ development finance group with a concessional window and asset management platform.
Its transformation has also opened new channels for African institutional capital. Today, a majority of the over 70 institutional investors across the TDB Group stable are from the continent.
“In addition to injecting risk capital into the Group, which acts as a multiplier, we also facilitate some of these investors’ participation in high-impact and unlisted opportunities in the region. Capital markets also have a big role to play in the availability of domestic capital, and this is why TDB Group supports various securities exchanges in diverse ways in the region. Debt swap arrangements can equally unlock domestic resources for specific targets,’’ adds Tadesse.
He agrees African MDBs and DFIs have an important role to play in shaping the continent’s industrialization agenda, and in particular, addressing structural deficiencies. “Some examples of the projects we have supported in three specific sectors include an mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility, several renewable energy power plants, and a fiber optic cable network to bolster ICT infrastructure,’’ he shares.
Reimagining Development Finance
The evolution of DFIs like TDB Group, ShafDB and AFC speaks to a broader reimagining of what development finance means in the African context. For much of the post-independence era, the term conjured images of multilateral lenders and concessional aid. Today, it increasingly points to a web of hybrid institutions blending commercial banking, infrastructure finance, and capital market innovation.
This shift is being accelerated by necessity. Global macroeconomic headwinds—from pandemic recovery to geopolitical shocks—have reduced the availability of concessional capital. At the same time, the continent’s financing needs are soaring: the AfDB estimates that closing the infrastructure gap alone will require between $130 billion and $170 billion annually.
African DFIs, both national and regional, are positioning themselves as the connective tissue between public policy and private investment. They are structuring credit guarantees, co-investing with private equity funds, and issuing green and social bonds in local currencies. Increasingly, they are also engaging in policy dialogue, pushing governments to reform financial regulations and creating investable environments.
“From a strategic perspective, we are driving sustainability and embedding sustainable principles into the operations of African DFIs, ensuring that [they], particularly national DFIs, are resilient and sustainable,” Cyril Okoye, Secretary General of the Association of African Development Finance Institutions (AADFI), tells FORBES AFRICA.
That drive extends to setting the rules of the game. AADFI, which currently represents 86 national DFIs across the continent, has introduced the Prudential Standards, Guidelines and Rating System (PSGRS), a framework aimed at strengthening governance, risk management, and sustainability across its members. The initiative mirrors the Basel standards used globally, but tailored to Africa’s realities.
“Evidence shows that African countries have domestic resources that could be tapped—for instance, capital markets, pension funds, mutual funds, savings, diaspora funds, and other private sources of funding. Again, part of the AADFI strategy is to build the capacity of African DFIs to mobilize these resources at scale and to deploy them efficiently for development projects,” says Okoye.
Industrializing The Future
Nowhere is the impact of Africa’s DFIs more visible than in the push for industrialization—a mission that blends economics with urgency. For Zubairu, the equation is simple: without industrialization, Africa’s demographic dividend could turn into a crisis.
He points to the continent’s mineral wealth as a foundation for industrialization. Africa has iron ore, bauxite, manganese, copper, cobalt and other resources essential for the global energy transition. He asks how the continent can harness hybrid iron ore, tap hydro potential, use flared gas in Nigeria or support processing facilities in Guinea, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). AFC is already involved in these shifts.
“There’s a project we’re working on in the DRC called the Kamoa-Kakula. It’s going to be the third largest copper smelter in the world. The plan is to move from copper ores to concentrates and then to anode, using hydro energy from one of the Inga dams to produce green copper. This is the kind of thing we need to replicate across the continent,” says Zubairu.
AFC has invested in over $15 billion worth of projects spanning power plants, ports, and mining infrastructure. Its strategy rests on patient capital and long-term partnerships, often stepping in where commercial lenders hesitate.
It is the developer of the Lobito Rail Corridor, an 830-kilometer greenfield line. “It just hurts me to think that we’re going to import the steel component that’s required for that,” he says. If sourcing cannot be solved for this project, he hopes it will be solved for the next. What matters is that the pattern changes.
These projects may not yield immediate returns, but they represent a structural bet on Africa’s capacity to industrialize.
The Sovereignty Question
At the recent All Africa Business Leaders Awards in South Africa, Prof Benedict Oramah, erstwhile president of Afreximbank, proposed four pillars to guide the continent’s leadership which he considered actionable imperatives for a sovereign, thriving Africa. The third pillar focused on strengthening African financial institutions as “fortresses of our sovereignty’’.
“Our multilateral financial institutions hold approximately $25 billion in combined capital (around 0.8% of Africa’s GDP) and over $100 billion in assets as of 2024, still dwarfed by Brazil’s BNDES ($30 billion capital, 1.4% of GDP; $160 billion assets) or China’s development banks (over $3 trillion assets). To match global peers, we must double our institutions’ capital,’’ Oramah said during his keynote speech at the event, where he was presented with the African of the Decade Award.
He added: “But it is not only about strengthening our multilateral financial institutions. We must also take control of our capital. Our forex reserves should be held in African institutions, as espoused by President Akufo-Addo, former President of Ghana. We should expand the use of local currency in financing. We should support PAPSS so we can begin to hold our reserves in African currencies, as may be required. We should encourage more African ownership of commercial banks that operate in Africa.’’
It is a speech that resonates beyond any ballroom. In an era when currency fluctuations, sanctions, and geopolitical realignments can instantly disrupt trade, the idea of retaining more liquidity and decision-making within Africa strikes a chord for many. Afreximbank itself has been living that philosophy for years, building a web of trade-finance facilities, export credit lines, and guarantee programs that increasingly anchor intra-African commerce.
Building The Ecosystem
As Oramah’s call for self-reliance gains momentum, other institutions are turning that vision into practical frameworks. At the center of this ecosystem are the national development banks—smaller but pivotal entities that channel funds into local infrastructure, agriculture, and small-business lending. For decades, many of them struggled with under-capitalization and political interference. But recent reforms, driven by AADFI’s governance standards and peer reviews, are restoring their credibility.
“Most DFIs have successfully developed effective and comprehensive approaches to capital allocation that catalyze resources from the private sector, blended finance, among others. As such, AADFI is supporting this effort by creating networks for peer learning of best practices, fostering integration, catalyzing investments, providing technical assistance and capacity building, and influencing policy to shape a viable environment for DFI operations,” says Okoye of AADFI.
That transformation is taking shape in countries such as Kenya, where the Kenya Development Corporation is experimenting with blended finance to support small and medium enterprises; Nigeria, where the Bank of Industry and Development Bank of Nigeria are partnering with commercial lenders on risk-sharing facilities; and Morocco, whose Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion is using pension assets to fund renewable-energy projects.
These institutions are now working more closely with regional peers, forming consortia that pool technical expertise and reduce transaction costs. In the past, one large infrastructure project might require a dozen separate bilateral negotiations. Today, DFIs are co-financing projects through syndicated platforms, accelerating delivery while distributing risk.
‘’It is estimated that the continent requires about $1.3 trillion annually to finance its SDGs, but the financing gap is estimated at over $200 billion. Therefore, DFIs have a significant responsibility to mobilize good resources and channel them to critical sectors for development. Sectors such as infrastructure, energy, manufacturing, agriculture, and logistics, as well as funding the right mix of investments, are key to sustainable development,’’ Okoye shares.
The Private-Capital Bridge
In Nigeria, the conversation about who funds Africa’s growth has begun to change. For years, venture capital on the continent depended heavily on global investors—Silicon Valley funds chasing emerging-market returns, European agencies searching for impact metrics, and development partners hoping to seed entrepreneurship. A new alignment is taking shape. Local limited partners (LPs) and DFIs are filling the gap, offering not just money, but context, discipline, and long-term commitment.
Kola Aina, the founding partner of Ventures Platform, one of Africa’s early-stage venture capital firms, has seen the shift firsthand. “Local LPs and DFIs are reshaping Africa’s venture landscape by anchoring funds, de-risking markets, and aligning capital with real economic priorities. A clear example is the local participation from Nigeria’s iDICE program, managed by the Bank of Industry, in the first close of our VP Pan-African Fund II at $64 million,” he says to FORBES AFRICA.
For Aina, the investment was more than a line item. It was a ‘’strong’’ signal—that domestic institutions were beginning to back local fund managers with confidence. The move, he says, marked a maturing of the ecosystem, as catalytic and commercial capital joined forces to expand fund sizes, strengthen investor confidence, and build Africa’s capacity to finance its own innovation.
The broader implications, Aina believes, extend well beyond the venture capital community. When African investors provide patient, context-aware funding, they help to shape startups that are not only viable but deeply relevant to local markets. This kind of alignment reduces the risk of business models that fail to adapt to African realities and improves long-term returns for both entrepreneurs and investors.
“It helps create a more complete venture continuum,” Aina says. “DFIs often focus on growth-stage opportunities, while local LPs can fill critical early-stage gaps. Together, they ensure promising startups can access capital throughout their journey.”
The partnership between DFIs and domestic capital providers, he adds, also raises governance and reporting standards across the ecosystem, reinforcing transparency and accountability without distorting commercial dynamics. For Aina, that is key to building a sustainable venture capital market on the continent—one where funds can grow responsibly while maintaining catalytic intent.
Put simply, he argues, African venture capital cannot reach its full potential without local capital and DFIs acting as both investors and ecosystem architects. Their ability to combine resources, patience, and market knowledge—what he calls “capital-with-context”—ensures investments deliver measurable commercial returns and lasting societal impact.
Toward Patient, Local Capital
Across Africa, a similar logic is unfolding within larger segments of the economy. Aishat Raji, principal and co-head of Nigeria advisory at the investment firm CrossBoundary Group, describes the shift as both necessary and transformative. “We are entering a period where global capital flows are tightening and official development assistance is declining, even as Africa’s development needs continue to rise,” she shares with FORBES AFRICA. “The response from African DFIs has been a decisive shift away from reliance on external aid toward African-led and commercially grounded financing models.”
In Raji’s view, DFIs have become “catalytic capital architects”—designing new financial structures that attract risk-averse domestic investors. These structures include first-loss tranches, guarantees, and targeted technical assistance that make investments in infrastructure, energy, and industry more attractive.
“The largest opportunity lies in activating domestic pools of capital, particularly pension funds and commercial banks that now have the scale and increasingly the appetite to participate in more sophisticated structures,” she says.
Over the years, she has observed a gradual change in the risk appetite of pension funds, driven not only by their search for stronger risk-adjusted returns but also by the evolution of local capital markets.
“When I first left investment banking, many of these structures did not exist. Today, we are seeing more innovative local-currency instruments and better credit enhancement mechanisms that make infrastructure and real-economy investments viable for conservative investors,” she says.
Raji points to the International Finance Corporation’s issuance of naira-denominated bonds as an important precedent. The move, according to her, demonstrated how a highly-rated institution could pave the way for domestic market deepening. She believes African institutions such as Afreximbank and the AfDB could replicate this model to further strengthen local capital markets.
Equally significant, she says, are blended finance initiatives like the FCDO-backed Green Guarantee Company, which provides a one-to-one guarantee enabling InfraCredit to issue highly rated, investment-grade local bonds. “These instruments are exactly the type pension fund administrators can safely invest in, aligning fiduciary duty with Africa’s development needs,” she says.
For Raji, DFIs sitting in the risk-absorbing layer of the capital stack is not about crowding out private investors. “It is about designing complementary structures that make African value chains investable end to end,” she says.
In many of the markets Raji has worked in—agriculture, renewable energy, health—the challenge is not just a lack of capital, but a lack of readiness. “Capital alone does not unlock these opportunities,” she says. “Many businesses simply are not investment-ready yet.”
In these contexts, she finds that upstream technical assistance is often as catalytic as financing itself. “It strengthens governance, improves financial reporting, clarifies unit economics, and enhances commercial viability,” she explains. “This ultimately makes companies bankable for local lenders and investors. Without early support, even the best-designed financing vehicles struggle to deploy at scale.”
This holistic approach is becoming a defining feature of African DFI strategies. Increasingly, they are not only lenders but also ecosystem-builders, shaping the market environment needed for private capital to take root.
Regional partnerships, too, are now central to their approach. Whether co-financing regional energy corridors, supporting pan-African manufacturing value chains, or building digital infrastructure that spans borders, DFIs are coordinating across countries to align standards and pool resources. The goal is to create a multiplier effect that no single institution can achieve alone.
“African DFIs are evolving into market-shapers rather than lenders. They are mobilizing domestic capital, strengthening local ecosystems, and building the financial architecture that can withstand global volatility,” Raji says.
She sees this evolution as pivotal for the continent’s next phase. “Africa’s next industrialization wave will depend less on traditional aid and more on how effectively African DFIs deploy catalytic and risk-tolerant capital to unlock private investment,” she says.
For Raji, the emerging pattern is clear. Africa’s development story is no longer one of dependency or external rescue. It is increasingly one of local ownership and financial innovation.
The shift is still unfolding, but the outlines are unmistakable.
A decade ago, Africa’s economic future was written largely in foreign currencies and external commitments.
Today, it is increasingly denominated in local capital, local expertise, and local conviction.
Pathways To Transformation Of African Resources
Samaila Zubairu believes Africa is standing before a narrow window in which it can accelerate its economic transformation. To him, the stakes are well-known.
“Our primary imperative has to be jobs. We really have to focus on jobs and how to create more jobs,” he says to FORBES AFRICA.
As President and CEO of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), and Chairman of the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions (AAMFI), Zubairu understands the continent’s demographic profile is what makes the need for change most urgent.
“Most of the people on the continent are young people under the age of 25. We’re a very young continent. And we’re also growing at a faster rate than most.”
Africa has long exported raw materials and has remained, as he puts it, “on the low value end of things. Incidentally, we’re exporting the jobs associated with processing those materials”.
The pathway he outlines begins with the transformation of African resources. The strategy of the AFC, which has already invested over $15 billion, focuses on infrastructure that enhances the production of finished goods for use on the continent and abroad. It is, he insists, a necessary shift.
New cities will require roads, power plants, rail systems and housing. All require steel. “We have an abundance of it,” he notes, referring to iron ore deposits spread across the continent.
Projects in collaboration with AAMFI span East, West, Central and southern Africa. They include the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor, the Kano-Maradi Rail Link and the Lobito Corridor.
Unlocking Africa’s Trillions
Part of the evolution of the Trade and Development Bank (TDB) Group has been geographic.
‘’We have reformed to selectively expand our geographical footprint towards the Western seaboard of the continent to more effectively support continental trade and leverage regional complementarities–in line with the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) ambitions,’’ TDB Group President and Managing Director Admassu Tadesse (pictured) tells FORBES AFRICA.
The institution’s foundation, Tadesse explains, was rooted in the need “to address large gaps in access to finance in the context of market failures and financial sector weaknesses in developing economies”.
That sense of duty shaped a sweeping set of reforms within the institution. It now operates through several subsidiaries, special purpose funds and strategic business units that span development banking, impact-oriented funding, asset management, captive insurance and capacity-building.
A central part of Tadesse’s vision is the vast pool of untapped capital within the continent itself. “There is a huge opportunity to leverage the trillions of dollars in African institutional capital that can be put at the service of our continent’s sustainable development,” he says.
These resources sit with central banks, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, insurance companies and other institutions. For more than a decade, TDB Group has worked to bring those investors into its structures.
Tadesse views African DFIs as central actors in the continent’s industrial future.
‘’Energy is a major part of infrastructure, and several initiatives are underway including Mission 300, which TDB Group is supporting in a close partnership with the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank.’’
Housing, Infrastructure And Pan-African Capital
Thierno-Habib Hann speaks about the future of African development finance with the steady confidence of a man convinced that the continent’s institutions are entering a new chapter.
The Managing Director and CEO of Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB) envisions a future when hybrid and innovative financing instruments will be essential to mobilizing fresh pools of capital. So will partnerships for the institution promoting and financing sustainable green housing, urban development and related infrastructure.
“Some of the opportunities to leverage domestic resources and regional partnerships include bundling regional infrastructure and housing projects to create investable portfolios. Combining financial support with technical assistance will also strengthen project bankability,’’ Hann shares with FORBES AFRICA. His institution’s five-year strategy tagged ‘New Dawn’ since 2023 focuses on balance sheet strengthening, strategic restructuring, and diversification of funding sources to enhance financial resilience. The institution is currently involved in financing housing and related infrastructure across the value chain.
Africa’s Premier DFI Seeks New Playbook
Dr Sidi Ould Tah stepped into his role as the new president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) with a sober reading of Africa’s challenges and an insistence on a new way forward.
“The uncertainties linked to geopolitical upheavals, the questioning of multilateralism, the reduction of official development assistance, the heavy debt burden of our countries, the negative impact of climate change, and major delays in achieving sustainable development goals are just a few examples,’’ Ould Tah said in his swearing-in speech on September 1.
Even as he described the risks, he spoke confidently about Africa’s capacity to rebound. He pointed to the continent’s resilience after the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 and again during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Africa is watching us. The youth is waiting for us. The time is now for action. Our continent is young, ambitious and restless. This energy should be the driving force behind our transformation. We must formalize our economies, reset our objectives and encourage partnership and entrepreneurship.’’
The bank itself spans 41 African countries, serves 54 regional members and works through the African Development Fund and the Nigeria Trust Fund.
The world’s great challenges may be shared, he said, but solutions will fall short unless African priorities and perspectives shape them.