AUDA-NEPAD Rallies Africa’s Capital Markets to Close $90bn Infrastructure Gap
The African Union (AU)’s development agency AUDA-NEPAD is mounting a continent-wide drive to tap Africa’s own financial muscle for infrastructure development, calling on pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and diaspora bonds to take a lead role in closing the continent’s $90 billion annual financing shortfall.
Ahead of the Luanda Financing Summit scheduled for 28–31 October, the agency announced plans to showcase successful domestic capital mobilisation models and policy reforms that channel local savings into major transport, energy, and digital projects.
“Africa cannot build its future by depending solely on external capital,” AUDA-NEPAD stressed. “Mobilising African institutional investors is essential to both sovereignty and long-term resilience.”
The Luanda summit will bring together African heads of state, institutional investors, and global financiers to explore blended finance models, de-risking instruments, and investment vehicles designed to keep African capital circulating within the continent.
Flagship projects under the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) — including the Lobito Corridor and cross-border energy interconnectors — will be presented as investment opportunities for African capital markets.
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The third Africa Infrastructure Financing Summit comes amid an urgent push to bridge Africa’s vast infrastructure financing gap. While the continent needs between $130bn and $170bn annually to meet its infrastructure needs, it currently secures only about $80bn.
AUDA-NEPAD, led by Nardos Bekele-Thomas, has been courting African investors, including the new Alliance of Multilateral African Financial Institutions launched in February 2024 alongside Afreximbank.
Business leaders from Dangote Group, Arab Contractors, MTN, Sonatrach, Sonangol, and major banks such as Ecobank, UBA, Nedbank and the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia are expected at the summit. They will join Western partners like the World Bank, IMF, and Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, alongside non-Western financiers such as ChinaEximbank, the Saudi Fund and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
At the political level, presidential dialogues will map out strategies for high-impact trade corridors, cross-border governance and African-led capital mobilisation.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu is expected to grace the summit. Other confirmed invitees include leaders from South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Rwanda, Ethiopia and several others. Former Nigerien president Mahamadou Issoufou is also expected in his contested role as AfCFTA “champion.”
Angolan President and current AU Chair João Lourenço announced the summit at the BRICS meeting in Brazil last July, underscoring its alignment with the Global South’s rising economic agenda.
By PRNigeria
