The African Development Bank (AfDB) has drawn a total of $63.8 billion in investment interest from African and global investors in 2022 through the Africa Investment Forum Market Days.
This was disclosed in a statement issued on the AfDB’s website recently.
The 2021 Africa Investment Forum Market Days, which was rescheduled to March this year, and the recently concluded 2022 event helped to raise $32.8 billion and $31 billion, respectively.
Attracting FDI to Africa: The President of AfDB, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, commended this outcome and the partners’ commitment. He said the Africa Investment Forum’s focus is to attract more foreign direct investment to Africa and ensure the private sector remains the driving force of that transformation.
“Despite the challenges, we are not afraid, and neither have we despaired nor lost hope. We are excited and committed to a collective goal… accelerating the closure of deals to transform Africa and its investment landscape,” Akinwumi explained.
“The private sector is Africa’s growth accelerator. We must mitigate real and perceived risks and persuade the private sector that investing in Africa is safe,” he emphasized.
Africa Finance Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Samaila Zubairu also commented, saying:
“The current global economic challenges indicate the critical need to build Africa’s self-sufficiency by investing in resilient infrastructure. Such critical investment is needed to drive Africa’s industrialization and economic prosperity.”
The CEO of Africa50, Alain Ebobisse said the AIF presented a timely platform to help scale up and speed up investments into Africa. According to him, attracting new pools of capital into infrastructure would be critical.
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“More specifically, Africa’s institutional investors such as pension and sovereign wealth funds must play a critical role and will be the game changers for Africa’s infrastructure development,” he said.
In addition, Afreximbank’s President, Benedict Oramah said the AIF reflected the interest and optimism of global investors towards the continent and its opportunities.
“We close, knowing that the AIF, Africa’s largest transactional investment marketplace, continues to be a huge success. Moreover, the event serves as a measure of international confidence in Africa’s economic and political development, and the unmatched investment opportunities this is creating,” Oramah concluded.
Recently, the AfDB President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina had said, Africa’s GDP would be falling by 3.4% from 2020 if COVID-19 continued. Hence, the AIF initiative was strategically initiated.
