A new joint study by the International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank, and the Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership gauges the appetite of African institutional investors for alternative asset classes.
Gauging Appetite of African Institutional Investors for New Asset Classes,” examines how and to what extent local institutional investors in seven Sub-Saharan African focus markets—Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)—have been allocating part of their portfolios to alternative asset classes over the past several years. The study aims to help national market stakeholders and development finance institutions identify potential market interventions that would develop asset classes that would suit these local investors’ mandates while channeling longer-term finance into areas such as infrastructure, climate mitigation, and affordable housing. The study tested local investor appetite for various existing and proposed investment structures, with a view to informing their design. The authors—the International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank, and the Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership—launched a report presenting the study findings at a joint virtual event on June 16, 2022.
