Raising capital was the main priority for the African Development Bank, said President Sidi Ould Tah when he took office last September, and he is using his first annual meeting in Brazzaville this week to try to rebuild the continent’s financing architecture and mobilise capital. The bank’s capital base grew from US$93 billion in 2015 to $318bn in 2025 under Ould Tah’s predecessor Akinwumi Adesina, yet Africa still faces a $400bn annual development-financing gap despite holding an estimated $4 trillion in medium- and long-term savings.

Getting pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other investment vehicles to channel their money into infrastructure was the EU’s answer in 2014 as it sought to finance public works after the eurozone debt crisis pushed most of the bloc into austerity budgets. With donor countries having cut official development assistance by 30% in two years – with more cuts expected by 2030 – Ould Tah now wants to pursue a similar strategy as part of a New African Financial Architecture for Development.

Few doubt that the cash exists. The bank’s latest African Economic Outlook estimates that the continent has about $1.43trn a year in domestic resources and would need to tap only a fraction of this to bridge Africa’s financing gap. But persuading the private sector to plug the gap left by governments will require major incentives and a level of cohesion that has so far been lacking.