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Kenyan President, William Ruto, has decried Africa’s development funding gap and called for increased domestic financing across the continent.
There is a large shortfall between the funds African countries need to achieve their development goals and the funds available from domestic and external sources. Many African countries need more funding for development projects, but the available funding is often insufficient.
Analysts have attributed the funding gap to low domestic revenue, a heavy debt burden, reliance on external financing, among others, leaving many African countries with poor infrastructure, limited access to healthcare and education and rising inequality.
Ruto, while speaking at the Africa Forward Summit on Tuesday, said the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) alone cannot finance Africa’s development goals.
“Africa must increasingly finance Africa. What do I mean? Across our continent, enormous pools of domestic capital remain underutilised. Africa today holds more than $4 trillion in long-term domestic savings, including over $1 trillion in pensions and insurance assets, and more than $500 billion in central bank reserves,” said Ruto.
“I am not talking about Europe. I’m talking about Africa. Yet, paradoxically, while this capital exists within African economies, governments across our continent continue to struggle to finance critical infrastructure, transport corridors, energy systems, industrial parks, logistics networks, and even affordable housing. There is capital in Africa, but Africa’s development projects remain starved of financing. The issue, therefore, is not liquidity. It is risk architecture.”
The Kenyan President further reaffirmed the country’s support for the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions, which he described as a “strategic platform for coordinating capital mobilisation, risk sharing, and project execution” across Africa.
The Africa Forward Summit is a high-level diplomatic and economic gathering co-hosted by Kenya and France. It brings together African leaders, global partners, investors, and institutions to discuss Africa’s development and future partnerships.
The summit is designed as a platform to strengthen Africa–France relations, attract investment and financing for the continent, and provide African leaders with an opportunity to discuss economic transformation, innovation, and development.
