African Pension Funds – Environmental, Social & Governance Factors Benchmarking Exercise

By Dr Rory Sullivan and Robert Black, Matthew Sullivan & Fiona Stewart

African Pension Supervisors Forum, representing pension supervisory authorities from across the African region, invited the team to review the approach to incorporation of ESG factors into decision making by pension funds across the región

This project assessed a sample of Africa’s pension funds on their sustainable investment related disclosure Strengths in disclosure were:

1.All of the funds provide good disclosure about their organisation, including their history, ownership, mission, governance structure and legal obligations. 2. All of the funds provide information on their financial performance and strategy, although the level of detail varies. 3. All of the funds (except one) disclose their total assets under management, and most with some analytical breakdown. 4. Half of the funds provide information on the importance of sustainability to their investments.

There are common information gaps:

  1. The funds provide limited information on their sustainable investment strategies. 2. The funds provide limited information on how sustainable investment is implemented, across their portfolios or in specific asset classes. 3. The funds provide limited information on delegated investment.

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