Africa should rely more on private capital – Minister

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has warned that Africa’s rising debt costs and shrinking development aid have left the continent with little choice but to depend more on private capital and regional investment.

Edun delivered the message on Thursday at the 5th B2B Agribusiness Matchmaking Event in Abuja, where he urged African countries to deepen intra-continental trade and mobilise domestic resources to cushion the impact of declining global support.

The event, themed ‘Catalysing Arab Africa Trade: Unlocking New Frontiers in Food and Agribusiness Trade,’ is part of the Arab Africa Trade Bridges Programme, taking place at the Transcorp Hilton.

Edun said the continent is grappling with debt-servicing obligations that divert scarce public funds from investment and development. He noted that concessional financing and overseas development assistance have continued to fall, with the African Development Bank projecting that aid flows to the continent dropped by nine per cent in 2024 and are set to fall by another 17 per cent in 2025.

He said this trend reflects a broader retreat from multilateralism and a global shift away from coordinated development support.

“African countries are facing with high debt burdens in many cases, high debt servicing requirements that are gulping up funds that could otherwise be used for public investment but it was also emphasised that really it is the private sector that is the real source of investment, whether it’s foreign direct investment, whether it’s domestic investment,” he stated, adding that the tightening global climate has only reinforced a long-standing reality.

Edun said the world is turning away from the multilateral cooperation that defined the decades after the emergence of the Bretton Woods institutions. He noted that the only remaining pockets of strong global collaboration appear in health and climate-related efforts, while broader economic assistance is drying up.

“The world has turned away from multilateralism, if you take out maybe the willingness for international cooperation in perhaps the health sector in some cases and definitely in the area of climate, the multilateralism of the last decades since the Bretton Woods institutions rose up is fast receding,” the minister said.

“Concessional financing and even flows, overseas development assistance flows to developing countries, to Africa have turned negative, were down by 9 per cent last year 2024, by 2025 the flows will be down perhaps by some estimates, AFDB’s estimates, 17 per cent so we have to look inward, we have to trade more with each other, we have to grow our economies together, the savings of our people being invested in productive activity.”

The minister argued that African economies must intensify regional links, boost value addition, and build investment-ready environments capable of attracting both domestic and foreign private capital.

He said the decline in global support makes it even more urgent for African nations to rely on their own productive capacity and deepen integration through intra-African trade.

The Chief Executive Officer of Welcome 2 Africa International, Bamidele Seun Awoola, said her organisation is working with partners to secure at least 10 major trade deals worth a minimum of $100m between African and Arab markets.

She said Africa–Arab trade holds vast potential but is still undermined by limited processing capacity, weak value-added production, and slow investment flows. According to her, the current matchmaking engagements show strong prospects of surpassing the $100m target.

Awoola said the organisation is focusing on joint ventures that bring manufacturers and processors into Nigeria, stressing that the country must pair its strong agricultural output with robust processing to create jobs and expand economic growth.

She said connecting producers to processors and structuring partnerships is central to building an industrial base that strengthens local economies and expands regional markets. She added that the matchmaking event was designed to produce concrete outcomes and not serve as another ceremonial gathering.

According to her, a detailed market analysis was carried out to identify the goods that African countries, particularly Nigeria, can competitively supply to meet demand in the Arab world. Only stakeholders with the capacity to deliver real investment and trade opportunities were invited.

Awoola expressed confidence that the event would lead to multiple partnerships, joint ventures, and wealth-creating opportunities aligned with Nigeria’s long-term development vision. She said strong interactions recorded on the opening day signalled the likelihood of significant commercial breakthroughs.

A key milestone of the Abuja meetings was the signing of two Membership Agreements with Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. The agreement with Nigeria, represented by the Federal Ministry of Finance, formally brings the country into the AATB Programme.

It covers initiatives aimed at improving export competitiveness, strengthening agribusiness value chains, enhancing SME development, and supporting national capacity in logistics, industrial development, and market access.