Africa

Local capital is an important part of the overall story in Africa. If Africans and African institutions are not investing in their own markets, why should somebody from outside the region think there is an opportunity here? To give credibility to the story they must invest, otherwise the story doesn't hold together.The markets in Africa are all at different stages of development in terms of regulation and knowledge about this asset class. For example, in Nigeria, the regulatory framework has changed considerably and pension funds are increasingly able to invest in different asset classes. South Africa and Botswana may be a bit ahead of the game; however, Botswana's internal markets lack depth, so the investment strategy is oriented more externally. Then you have the South African pension funds, which have a lot of capital and are now starting to look beyond South Africa. As you can imagine, South Africa combined with the rest of Africa is a great story. So for them, understanding the challenges and the characteristics of investing outside of South Africa is their learning curve.Limited partners in these markets face different issues, but I can see them all converging to form a very big investor group in the next five years. They are starting from virtually zero in terms of exposure to private equity, so allocations are going to go up from 0-5 per cent to maybe 10 per cent or 15 per cent of their portfolio. On the other hand, pension fund assets under management are increasing at exponential rates because their markets are growing, and more people are coming into the workforce. The importance of African pension funds as a source of capital is not to be underestimated.

Patricia Nzolantima, a partner and country manager at Exp-Comunicart Agency, discusses her microfinance programme that was set up to help women entrepreneurs.

This paper uses cross-country firm-level surveys to gauge access to financial services and the importance of financing constraints for African enterprises. The paper compares access to finance in Africa and other developing regions of the world, within Africa across countries, and across different groups of firms. It relates firms' access to finance to firm and banking system characteristics and discusses policy challenges.

Over the past decade Africa has experienced a 5% growth across the continent. This surprising and spectacular growth attracts investors from around the world. They are both forced to change their perception about what contains profound upheaval, and seduced by what is now considered as the emerging new frontier. Among the ten countries in the world where economic growth was the fastest between 2000 and 2010, five were located in sub-Saharan Africa: Equatorial Guinea (12.3% per year), Angola (9.3% per year), Chad (8.8% per year), Nigeria (7.4% per year) and Ethiopia (6.9% per year).

But this growth remains fragile, uneven and carries huge challenges: how to ensure that it benefits to the greatest number of people and allow millions to get out of the poverty trap?

In 2050, Africa will not only account for 4% of the global economy, it will also make up 23% of the world's population. This new world pole will be facing major issues such as the employment of a young and dynamic population that will be increasingly numerous in the labour markets. In this context, African small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are best positioned to create jobs and local added value, as well as develop the local economic fabric. They stand for essential drivers for social and political stability by spreading the wealth created and structuring local economies.

Nevertheless, SMEs appear as missing links in most African economies. They desperately need to find ways to meet their needs for growth despite a latent lack of access to finance. Too small and too costly to manage for large banking institutions, they are also too large to meet the investment criteria of microfinance institutions. They often are in a deadlock and do not fully benefit from the growth of the continent.

In this context, what solution one could bring to these key actors for responsible and sustainable growth in Africa in order to enable them start their business or scale up?

The solution lies in the emergence of new financing capacities that will offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to strengthen their capital stock under conditions compatible with certain constraints in terms of management fees, transaction costs, etc. It consists of developing a new industry of capital investment, 100% African, which can rely on a network of local investment funds, promoted by African investors and managed by locally recruited teams. This new device will revolutionize the access to finance for small African entrepreneurs through new sustainable funding solution.

But this capital will not be sufficient for African entrepreneurs to reach their growth potential and maximize their economic, social and environmental impacts. It should be complemented by strategic guidance for establishing solid fundamentals and ensuring sustainable development in due respect of all stakeholders. Finally, technical assistance missions will be essential to build and strengthen the financing capacities, through the transfer of know-hows, methodologies and the development of local skills.

The creation of this network of African investment funds will draw lessons from successes and failures of microfinance and will bring to private equity the same kind of revolution as the one microfinance has brought to the debt. It will require a real education for not only existing African finance players: banks, development agencies, private institutions, so that everyone contributes to the success of this new funding; but also with entrepreneurs as private equity is sometimes looked at with distrust and its benefits are not fully appreciated today!

In June this year, She Leads Africa, a Nigerian-based social enterprise that aims to foster business growth in Africa by providing female startup entrepreneurs with the knowledge, networks, and financing to build and scale strong businesses, launched a business pitch competition.

African women entrepreneurs are a dynamic force who are increasingly transforming their communities and driving economic growth on the African continent. Some 63 percent of women in the non-agricultural labor force are self-employed in the informal sector in Africa, more than twice the worldwide rate, according to the World Bank.And what we find equally amazing at Village Enterprise, a nonprofit organization that equips people living in extreme poverty with resources to create sustainable businesses, is this rising trend: A previously unimagined number of African women--a long-untapped economic force-- not only are lifting up out of extreme poverty, but themselves are doing much of the heavy financial lifting to help fuel growth in entire communities.

The potential of new technologies to transform financial services in Africa has long been heralded by the likes of Kenya’s M-Pesa and others. But services for corporates have remained relatively underserved – until now. From the sands of the Sahara in the north to the Limpopo river which marks the border with South Africa to the south, economic, political and technological changes are emerging that favour new opportunities for banks.