By Bassey Udo
The African Heads of State and Government have unveiled the Africa Infrastructure Financing Facility (AIFF) to accelerate the preparation and facilitation of financing for priority cross-border infrastructure projects in the continent.
The unveiling held during the Third Presidential High-Level Dialogue of the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions (AAMFI) convened on the margins of the 39th African Union Summit under the theme: “Strengthening Africa’s Financial Architecture to Finance Agenda 2063.”
President of Ghana and African Union Champion on AU Financial Institutions, John Dramani Mahama, presided over the Dialogue to reinforce Africa’s commitment to translating financial sovereignty into operational mechanisms capable of mobilizing long-term capital at scale.
The AIFF, which aligns with Agenda 2063, is a coordinated Africa-led platform designed to ease the financing constraints driven by fragmented capital markets, elevated cost-of-capital premiums, limited long-term funding, and persistent reliance on external financial systems that do not fully reflect Africa’s development realities.
Against this backdrop, African leaders emphasized the need to strengthen existing African Multilateral Financial Institutions (AMFIs), while accelerating the operationalization of African Union Financial Institutions.
“Africa has domestic capital pools exceeding $2.5 trillion,” President Mahama stated. “The challenge is not the availability of capital, but how intentionally we deploy it into infrastructure, industrialization, and job creation to realize Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area.”
He underscored the importance of reducing dependency on fragmented financing systems that misprice Africa’s risk and called for a coherent continental financial architecture capable of financing Africa’s development sustainably.
The representative of the African Union Commission, Mrs. Francisca Tatchouop Belobe, who is also the Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals, reaffirmed the AU’s commitment to strengthening continental financial coordination:
“The launch of the AIFF is a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved when political will and institutional coordination converge. We are confident that this Facility will contribute meaningfully to closing Africa’s infrastructure financing gap, estimated at approximately US$221 billion annually over the period 2023 to 2030,” she said.
President & Chief Executive Officer of Africa Finance Corporation and Outgoing Chairman of AAMFI, Samaila Zubairu, in his opening remarks underscored the importance of coordinated African capital deployment.
“The Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions represents over $70 billion in balance sheets, working together to close Africa’s trade, investment, and development financing gaps. Our collective action is central to mobilizing the resources needed to deliver transformative infrastructure and regional integration,” he said.
Africa’s development ambitions, he noted, require scale, institutional alignment, and disciplined capital mobilization to close infrastructure and industrial financing gaps.
Highlighting the importance of the Facility, Dr. George Elombi, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank said the AIFF was designed to address the most persistent constraint to infrastructure delivery in Africa, which is the gap between political approval and financial execution.
“Too many projects stall not because they lack relevance, but because they are insufficiently prepared, inadequately structured, or misaligned with the requirements of long-term capital. African Multilateral
“Financial institutions understand African risks, African markets, and African development realities. By pooling expertise, balance sheets, and risk frameworks, the Facility moves Africa from fragmented interventions to a coherent system capable of mobilizing capital at scale,” he said.
The CEO of Africa Reinsurance Corporation and incoming Chair of AAMFI, Dr. Corneille Karekezi, emphasized institutional collaboration, saying Africa’s development finance must be anchored in collaboration and innovation.
By strategically sharing risks, strengthening African institutions, and mobilizing both domestic and private capital, he said we can build a resilient financial ecosystem capable of delivering transformative infrastructure and industrial growth across the continent.
The Dialogue noted that while political commitment to infrastructure remained strong, projects often face constraints at early preparation stages, adding that limited project preparation funding, fragmented regional policies, and insufficient coordination posed key challenges.
The AIFF was established under a Cooperation Framework Agreement between AUDA-NEPAD and AAMFI to provide a structured, Africa-led coordination mechanism to accelerate project preparation and facilitate indicative, non-binding engagement on financing for priority infrastructure aligned with Agenda 2063.
In a further demonstration of momentum toward strengthening Africa’s financial architecture, the Dialogue concluded with the ceremonial deposit of the Instrument of Ratification of the Protocol and Statutes of the African Monetary Fund (AMF) by the Republic of Cameroon.
The unveiling of the facility reinforces Africa’s ongoing efforts to operationalize key African Union Financial Institutions aimed at promoting macroeconomic stability, providing balance-of-payments support, and enhancing monetary and financial cooperation among African Union Member States.
The Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions (AAMFI), also known as the Africa Club, is a coalition of African-owned and controlled multilateral financial institutions launched in February 2024 in collaboration with the African Union Commission.
The Alliance brings together 12 institutions representing a combined balance sheet of over $70 billion.
AAMFI promotes coordination, collective action, and unified advocacy to mobilize African capital, strengthen the continent’s financial architecture, and support sustainable development and regional integration in line with Agenda 2063.