Thematic Lunch: Investing in Africa

Over the last decade, widespread debate has occurred over the opportunities and risks of Africa's fast-growing youth population and the implications which this will have on Africa's workforce. How do we unlock Africa's massive workforce talent both for the continent and on the global scale for decades to come? Are there other geographies which African leaders should be drawing inspiration from as they position their nations for a new era in an increasingly globalized workforce? As working populations become older in many Western nations and African nations experience a rise in youth talent, what implications does this have for the dynamic of global talent and migration? Finally, which sectors should Africa be prioritizing its talent development efforts in to ensure a well-balanced skills distribution?

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There have been several iterations of how to adapt the traditional PE fund for Africa's unique challenges. These include permanent capital vehicles, de novo funds and sovereign wealth funds. Are these iterations performing any better? What are the lessons for traditional PE from these experiments? What other iterations are LPs like DFIs willing to invest in next?

In 2022, public debt in Africa reached USD 1.8 trillion. While this is a fraction of the overall outstanding debt of developing countries, Africa’s sovereign debt has increased by 183% since 2010, a rate roughly four times higher than its growth rate of GDP in dollar terms. Today, 60% of African countries spend more on repaying their debts than on healthcare, a trend that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the war on Ukraine and the overall economic slowdown in the past few years. While international organizations have stepped in to support (for example, the G20 assisted 31 out of 36 eligible African countries with its Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI)), the question remains: Why has Africa not been able to break out of this debt trap? And what role does the public and private sector play in moving past this dynamic?

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