Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente on Wednesday, November 8, arrived in Morocco to attend the Africa Investment Forum, the continent’s largest investment market. The three-day forum themed “Unlocking Africa’s Value Chains”, brings together Heads of State, government officials, captains of industry, philanthropists, investors, and development finance institutions to advance investment-ready deals toward market close. ALSO READ: It’s Africa’s time for investment – Kagame The market days aim at stirring investors’ interest in bankable deals in energy, agribusiness, manufacturing and other sectors where Africa holds a comparative advantage. The forum has the ability to crowd in private sector financing for transformative projects with huge developmental impact, and this is conducted by profiling transformational projects, matching the projects with investors, convening project stakeholders and offering de-risking tools, designed by the African Development Bank and its partners. Transactions are sourced from the investment pipelines of the Africa Investment Forum’s partners, including the African Development Bank, Africa50, Africa Finance Corporation, Afreximbank, Development Bank of Southern Africa, European Investment Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and Trade and Development Bank. ALSO READ: EAC takes over 25% of investment attracted at Africa Investment Forum Previous editions of the Africa Investment Forum Market Days have drawn cumulative investment interest of $142.6 billion, with projects featured in 2022 market days drawing $31 billion in investment interest from African and global investors. It is believed that institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, global asset managers, endowment funds, private equity funds family offices and foundations hold the necessary resources to enable Africa's critical sectors scale up from billions to trillions at a global level. This is while institutional investors and commercial banks, collectively hold about $120 trillion in assets-under-management and only about 0.1 percent of the global assets and 12 percent African institutional investors' assets would be needed to bridge the continent's investment gap.
