Resourcing African Agency through Continental Domestic Private Capital

As global economic uncertainties intensify and traditional multilateral frameworks face unprecedented challenges, Africa stands at a pivotal moment. How can the continent harness its own resources to chart an independent path forward?

President Zubairu of the African Finance Corporation addresses this urgent question in a keynote lecture examining Africa’s capacity to finance its own transformation. The current global landscape presents formidable obstacles: declining commitments to multilateralism from key Global North actors, widespread funding cuts to development and humanitarian assistance, attacks on international institutional infrastructure, and escalating trade tensions that directly impact African economies. Longstanding structural inequities in global finance and debt As global economic uncertainties intensify and traditional multilateral frameworks face unprecedented challenges, Africa stands at a pivotal moment. How can the continent harness its own resources to chart an independent path forward?

President Zubairu of the African Finance Corporation addresses this urgent question in a keynote lecture examining Africa’s capacity to finance its own transformation. The current global landscape presents formidable obstacles: declining commitments to multilateralism from key Global North actors, widespread funding cuts to development and humanitarian assistance, attacks on international institutional infrastructure, and escalating trade tensions that directly impact African economies. Longstanding structural inequities in global finance and debt regimes continue to constrain African development prospects.

Yet compelling opportunities are emerging. Africa’s domestic private capital stands at an estimated USD 4 trillion, representing a substantial foundation for continental transformation. The continent commands growing global interest in strategic minerals essential for green energy transitions, positioning Africa as central to future supply chain security. Economic and trade interactions with Global South actors, including Middle Eastern economies and China, are deepening. Higher-than-anticipated growth levels, the operationalization of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and a vibrant, innovative youth population driving chage across technology, creative economies, and knowledge systems all signal new possibilities for African agency.

This keynote will explore how African actors can effectively mobilize these resources in an era of fragmented multilateralism. President Zubairu will examine the role of domestic finance in driving infrastructural and socioeconomic change, strategic investment priorities for enhancing Africa’s global influence, continental coordination mechanisms for development beyond dependency, and the opportunities and risks in Africa’s evolving engagement with both Global North and Global South economies.

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