Africa Archives - Pension Policy International

16OctOctober 16, 2026

Africa’s Pension Funds Are Growing, But Too Much Capital Still Sits in Government Bonds

Africa’s pension industry is accumulating significantly more capital, but much of that money is still circulating between retirement funds and governments rather than financing companies, infrastructure and other productive assets. Pension assets across the economies covered by the 2026 Absa Africa Financial Markets Index increased by nearly US$70 billion in the latest year, equivalent to growth of 24 percent, the largest annual increase recorded in at least four years. South Africa accounted for US$42 billion of that increase as...

October 16, 2026

NewsAfrica, savings

28AugAugust 28, 2026

African Pension Funds shift more capital into private equity

Ghana is increasingly being recognised as one of Africa’s most credible examples of how domestic pension savings can be invested in more diverse alternatives and channelled into assets such as private equity, venture capital and SME growth financing. Ghana has spearheaded notable pension industry initiatives focused on shifting domestic capital pools towards the real economy, including GVCA’s 5% Pension and Insurance Industry Compact, launched in April 2025, Impact Investing Ghana’s Pension Industry Collaborative, and the $70m SME Fund of Funds...

August 28, 2026

NewsAfrica, Pension Management

04AugAugust 4, 2026

Evidence reveals how African pension and sovereign wealth funds are increasingly allocating to alternative assets like private equity

Ghana is increasingly positioning itself as one of Africa’s most credible examples of how domestic pension savings can be channeled into private equity, venture capital and SME growth financing with industry initiatives focused on shifting domestic African capital pools towards local real economy investments, including the Ghana Venture Capital and Private Equity Association GVCA 5% Pension and Insurance Industry Compact launched in April 2025 and the $70m Fund of Funds Ci Gaba managed by Savannah Impact Advisory. At a recent...

August 4, 2026

NewsAfrica, Investment, Pension Management

17JulJuly 17, 2026

Extending Pension Coverage to the Informal Sector in Africa

By Melis Guven The coverage of pension systems in the Africa region is limited to the small segment of the population in the formal sector. Coverage is thin partly because traditional contributory pension schemes are not responding to the needs of the informal sector. As a result, a large share of the region’s adult population has no access to contributory pension schemes during their working lives. This means they will not be eligible for a pension. It also means the...

July 17, 2026

Articles, Pension designAfrica, Coverage, Informal Sector, Pension design

08OctOctober 8, 2025

African pension funds unify to mobilize $700b for continent’s development

African pension providers are for the first time unifying their efforts to create a domestic financing pool, aiming to mobilize their collective $700 billion in assets to establish a “Development Fund for Africa.” The unprecedented move is driven by an imperative to fund the continent’s development needs locally and reduce reliance on traditional foreign funding, according to leaders in the industry. The African Development Bank estimates the continent needs more than $1.3 trillion annually to meet its development goals. The plan...

October 8, 2025

NewsAfrica, Investment

02SepSeptember 2, 2025

How Africa is grappling with an impending aging crisis

Across Africa, a stunning success story has quietly taken hold: Decades of progress have begun delivering a wave of longevity that promises to reshape the demographics of the continent. But as lifespans lengthen and villages begin to fill with the old, pensions and social safety nets are minimal, medical care is lacking and routine problems of age are so commonly unaddressed that cataracts turn to blindness and minor infections end in death. Longer lives, time and again, come with more...

September 2, 2025

News2025, Africa, Aging, Labor Market

20AugAugust 20, 2025

Financial inclusion, mobile money and the rural, informal economy

FINTECH has revolutionalised banking activities globally over the past one decade so tremendously in both scale and scope. In developing countries, it has brought banking within the reach of many hitherto disadvantaged cohorts of the populace, thus drawing them into the ever-widening circle of those having access to banking operations. It has also contributed significantly to wealth creation within the underprivileged populace, providing regular incomes and access to credit in many instances. Africa has opened up and started to...

August 20, 2025

NewsAfrica, Fintech, Informal Sector

23JunJune 23, 2025

African Development Bank’s Commitment to Paris Alignment

The African Development Bank is fully committed to aligning its operations and investments with the goals of the Paris Agreement. This alignment supports Africa’s sustainable development, helps address climate challenges, and promotes climate resilience and low-carbon growth, in line with the Bank’s Ten-Year Strategy and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 “The Africa We Want”. PARIS AGREEMENT The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change, adopted by 196 parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris...

June 23, 2025

NewsAfrica, Climate crisis

10JunJune 10, 2025

Africa can fund infrastructure with $4 trillion of own assets: AFC

Africa must shift away from a dependency on foreign infrastructure financing and begin to unlock the potential of its own substantial financial resources, according to the Africa Finance Corporation. The organisation’s State of Africa’s Infrastructure Report 2025 argues that Africa is not lacking in capital – it points to over $4 trillion in domestic resources, including commercial bank assets, pension funds, remittances, and sovereign wealth – but is failing to fully leverage what it already possesses. “Financing this infrastructure transformation must...

June 10, 2025

NewsAfrica, Investment

06JunJune 6, 2025

Africa can tap $1.1trn from investors for growth, AFC says

African institutional investors are sitting on $1.1 trillion in capital that could finance the region’s long-term infrastructure needs and power industrial growth, the Africa Finance Corporation said Thursday. Pensions and insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds and public development banks are still channeling funds into “low-risk and short-term instruments instead of being channelled into the real economy,” according to the multilateral lender’s 2025 State of Africa’s Infrastructure Report. The AFC estimates that $455 billion of the capital sits in pension funds, while...

June 6, 2025

NewsAfrica, Investment

October 2026

Africa’s Pension Funds Are Growing, But Too Much Capital Still Sits in Government Bonds

August 2026

African Pension Funds shift more capital into private equity

Evidence reveals how African pension and sovereign wealth funds are increasingly allocating to alternative assets like private equity

July 2026

Extending Pension Coverage to the Informal Sector in Africa

October 2025

African pension funds unify to mobilize $700b for continent’s development

September 2025

How Africa is grappling with an impending aging crisis

August 2025

Financial inclusion, mobile money and the rural, informal economy

June 2025

African Development Bank’s Commitment to Paris Alignment

Africa can fund infrastructure with $4 trillion of own assets: AFC

Africa can tap $1.1trn from investors for growth, AFC says