Participants in the 4th Annual Meeting of the Africa Sovereign Investors Forum (ASIF), including President Bola Tinubu and Pan-African activist and Professor of Public Law, Prof. PLO Lumumba, on Monday called on leaders across Africa to mobilise the continent’s sovereign wealth to invest in the future development of her unborn generations.
Both leaders and others spoke at the opening of the Forum hosted by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) on the theme “Leveraging African Sovereign Wealth Funds to Mobilise Global Capital for Transformative Development in Africa.”
Lumumba who urged African leaders to focus more on investing within the continent and not outside, said the collective duty of all African people must not be to think Africa’s resources were inexhaustible, but to ensure that what was realised from the exploitation of these resources were properly utilised to the bennefit of the present and future gnerations.
“When we drill oil or other resources either in Angola, Equatorial Guinea, or Nigeria, we must remember that in the next 100 years, after we are all gone, our countries would still be there to be served.
“We should ask ourselves what we are doing with the income realised now from the exploitation of these resources, so that our children and children’s children will have something to inherit.
“Our sovereign wealth funds must be invested in Africa. Africa is not going to be made great simply because we want her to be great. We must collaborate with each other. But we must work at it as equals.
“We can make Africa great again. Let us give value to all our resources – oil, gold, copper, uranium, cobalt.
“Let us give meaning to the first and fifth industrial revolution. Let us not be consumers of what we do not produce and producers of what we do not consume. The time is now.
“I say no more. Let us unite and think of this generation and generations yet unborn through the creation of sustainable sovereign funds that will be Africa-wide. Let us make Africa great again because he was once great,” he said.
President Bola Tinubu, who declared the meeting open, called for collective action and regional cooperation among African countries to actualise Africa’s transformative development.
The President who was represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, underlined the need for careful utilisation of sovereign wealth funds to close the infrastructure gap, build climate change resilience and create jobs for the growing youth population in the continent.
Africa, Tinubu said, must take advantage of the emerging opportunities in the global economic landscape, by emulating the evolving sovereign wealth funds to serve not as mere fiscal buffers, but as architects of national transformation.
“Our future lies not in working in silos, but in pursuing regional cooperation and collective ambitions. Our sovereign wealth funds must become the anchors for pan-African investment platforms that de-risk projects, standardise processes, and deliver sustainable outcomes at scale. This is not just a strategy. This is a necessity,” he stated.
Acknowledging the development dilemma Africa is facing currently, amid limited fiscal space, growing expectations and demands for long-term capital to fuel inclusive and sustainable growth, President Tinubu said embracing creativity was the only way to solve the puzzle.
“There can be no greater inspiration to invest, whether in setting up critical infrastructure, strengthening our climate resilience, promoting food security through agricultural innovation, supporting micro, small and medium enterprises, or embracing the digital economy to create jobs and expand opportunity.
“None of these is possible without catalytic institutions that combine strategic foresight with sound financial discipline. This is why the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority stands not only as a steward of our sovereign capital, but as a vehicle for the delivery of strategic infrastructure.
“The NSIA is a catalyst in our national quest to redeem renewable energy, healthcare, agriculture, and much more. It is also a hub for pioneering innovative capital mobilisation solutions tailored to the realities of our continent,” the President said.
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He commended the unveiling of the ASIF Investment Platform, saying it was not only a strategic initiative to deepen collaboration among Africa’s sovereign wealth funds, but also an innovative tool to pool the continent’s capital, expertise to mobilise financing for high-impact, cross-border projects to advance inclusive and sustainable development across Africa.
The NSIA, as a founding member of ASIF, he noted has taken an active role in advancing the vision to mobilise like-minded African funds and international partners to design long-term, impactful investment solutions.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, listed priorities for participants at the forum to include capital mobilisation at scale, regional and intercontinental collaboration, human capital and policy alignment, saying these were critical for transformative development across the continent.
He expressed the hope that ASIF would attract significant transactions to mobilise the resources required to drive economic transformation across Africa, forge impactful partnerships and build a sustainable future.
In his remarks, President of AfreximBank, Prof. Benedict Oramah, emphasised the need to harness the power of African Sovereign Wealth Funds to bear on delivering economic prosperity to Africans.
By forging strong partnerships, he said African Sovereign Wealth Funds could propel industrialization and trade across the continent, although he lamented that more than 60 years after Africa’s independence from the colonialists, the dream of attaining true economic sovereignty, where prosperity would rise, spread and bridge the development gap with the industrialized world, was yet to be attained.
Over the period, he said the reality was that Africa still accounts for a disproportionate 39% of the global poor, despite accounting for just 17% of the world’s population, while the continent’s share of global trade, once at a level of 5% in the 1960s, has dwindled to under 3%.
Besides, with manufacturing value-added remaining at a mere 2% of the global total, Oramah said the implications on real people every day, in terms of high infant mortality, rampant deaths due to malnutrition and diseases, grossly limited access to healthcare, hundreds dying while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, to Europe and lack of respect for our people.
He said the relevant question now is no longer why Africa lags behind in terms of development, but the people can collectively seize their destiny and propel the continent forward.
“Africa’s economic growth and development hinges on how the people are able to mobilise capital to finance the continent’s development,” he said.
“Africa is blessed with abundant supply of labour – 1.4 billion people, 60% under 25, a dynamic youth bulge ready to power our future. African Sovereign Wealth Funds collectively manage over 100 billion US dollars in assets, which grows from year to year. While modest by global benchmarks, this figure becomes immensely significant if we consider that they constitute about 150% of the annual FDI flows to Africa in recent years”, he added.
The Chairman of ASIF, Mr Obaid Amrane, who gave the assurance that Africa was open for business, expressed the commitment of the forum to facilitate the participation of sovereign investors in Africa’s transformation.
Reviewing the progress of ASIF since its inception, he disclosed that in just three years, the forum has made significant strides in enhancing Africa’s global positioning, closing the infrastructure funding gaps across the continent and promoting greater collaboration among governments and sovereign investors in transformative projects that impact lives across the region.
The Managing Director of NSIA and chief host, Mr Aminu Umar-Sadiq, said the focus of the meeting was on how Africa Sovereign Wealth Funds, through effective domestic, continental, and global partnerships, can foster the continent’s developmental aspirations of future generations.
Also, he said the meeting would help create a sustainable investment vehicle that would mobilize global capital to finance projects to generate commercial and social returns, while positioning itself as the preferred financial and strategic partners of choice for global investors seeking market exposure in Africa.
