Wef 2025: Davos Hears Calls To Unlock Africas Pension Capital

At a panel discussion during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Samaila Zubairu, president and CEO of the Africa Finance Corporation, said the structure of African economies, reliant as they currently are on the production and export of raw materials, does not foster value addition, generate quality jobs, or facilitate the capital formation necessary for a robust banking system.

Value addition on the continent, however, must be prioritised to create jobs and incomes that can support the financial system, he said.

Those employees will pay taxes that can be used to build schools for education. Those employees will make savings that will go to mutual funds and stock exchanges, savings accounts and pensions. Those pensions will be available to build infrastructure. They'll be available to pension managers to allocate for venture capital and for private equity, which will then be to finance ventures by young people, he argued.

Zubairu suggested that African countries need to change their pension rules so that pension funds can invest in African projects. African banks must also be capitalised to a much higher level, giving them the capacity to support bigger ticket projects.

If we dont have local banks or domestic resources, there can be no development, he warned, adding that we must not only accumulate reserves to pay for imports we should have reserves to pay for investments in infrastructure.