NAFAD Framework Operating to Unlock Capital for Real Businesses, AfDB says

The Bank Group hosted a roundtable titled “Making NAFAD Work for Africa’s Real Economy,” presenting the Pan African Guarantee Platform as a practical example of the framework in action.

The African Development Bank Group's New African Financial Architecture for Development initiative is already operating, the institution's leaders told bankers, pension funds and investors gathered in Luanda on 3 November. Speaking at the Africa Financial Industry Summit 2026, they outlined how the framework is changing the way capital and risk move through Africa's financial ecosystem. The discussion focused on turning available financial resources into investment that supports businesses and productive economic activity.

The Bank Group hosted a roundtable titled "Making NAFAD Work for Africa's Real Economy," presenting the Pan African Guarantee Platform as a practical example of the framework in action. Through the platform, clearly defined risks can be transformed, shared and reassigned to institutions best equipped to manage them. This process improves the credit profile of transactions and makes them more attractive to commercial and institutional investors.

Manuel Moses, chief executive officer of African Trade & Investment Development Insurance, known as ATIDI, said the platform was operating before its formal launch. ATIDI manages the Pan African Guarantee Platform, giving the wider NAFAD framework an existing institution through which to put its approach into practice. The message to investors was that implementation had begun, with guarantees providing a practical route to mobilising capital.

Connecting existing institutions around investment needs

Solomon Quaynor, the Bank's Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization, said NAFAD would build different ecosystems for different purposes, using the guarantee platform as a model. He pointed to the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa, launched by the Bank Group, Africa50 and the African Union at COP27, as a comparable partnership. Both examples show how institutions can bring their capabilities together around a defined financing need.

Session moderator Didier Acouetey, Senior Advisor to the Bank's President on Private Sector Development and NAFAD, said the priority was better coordination within and between existing institutions. The framework was developed through consultations with guarantee institutions, development banks, insurers, pension funds, stock exchanges, central banks and commercial banks, giving its design a foundation in their practical experience. Its four pillars cover reducing investment risks, mobilising domestic resources, improving regulation and building deeper, better-connected financial markets.

Expanding guarantee capacity and local currency financing

Acouetey said the Bank's Board approved a USD 125 million equity investment in ATIDI in May 2026, demonstrating that NAFAD had moved into implementation. The investment would advance plans to increase ATIDI's capital from approximately USD 1 billion to USD 2 billion, with a subsequent ambition of reaching USD 5 billion. Responding to a banker's question about when the framework would become real, he pointed to this commitment as evidence that work had started.

Ahmed Attout, the Bank Group's Director for Financial Sector Development, described the guarantee platform as a single access point for guarantees across Africa and highlighted ATIDI's distinctive role. Moses said the agency marked 25 years of operations in 2026 and had helped mobilise USD 94 billion in investment since 2001. According to Moses, ATIDI can mobilise between 10 and 15 dollars for every dollar of capital it receives, illustrating the potential reach of additional investment.

ATIDI works through local lenders and investors, including in local currency, supporting their activities without competing with them. Moses cited Nigeria, where its guarantees helped issuers secure regulatory approval for financing with a 15-year term denominated in naira. The example showed how guarantees can support longer-term financing in domestic markets and connect institutional capacity with borrowers' needs.

Bringing banks and pension funds into productive investment

Admassu Tadesse, Group President and CEO of the Trade and Development Bank Group, drew on his institution's experience as an ATIDI shareholder and client to highlight financial capacity that remains unused. He said a platform could organise that capacity more systematically, helping institutions put available resources to work. Charles Russon, Chief Executive Officer for Africa Regions at ABSA Bank, described NAFAD as a potentially major opportunity and stressed that financing must reach productive assets in the real economy.

Denis Charles Kouassi, Director General of Côte d'Ivoire's national pension fund, CNPS, said pension funds had an important role in the architecture and needed new vehicles for equity investment. Such vehicles would allow companies to access pension capital and give investors opportunities to earn dividends and capital gains. Acouetey closed by inviting participants to engage with the Bank Group and the guarantee platform, emphasising that NAFAD was open for business.