The African Venture Philanthropy Alliance, a Pan-African network of social investors that was started in 2018, launched yesterday a report on the state of social investment financing in Africa. The report is the first of several concerted efforts aimed at addressing information gaps on social investments financing, and it provides a high level picture of the social investing space across Africa.

The report presents findings of an eight-month study across 18 countries in Africa. The report highlights what is currently happening in African social investment, who the key players are, their approaches to investing, challenges they face, and the opportunities they are seeing. It also identifies additional areas of future research while making recommendations of opportunities to create a stronger ecosystem for increased capital flow and social impact on the continent.

‘Africa needs an estimated $500 billion – $1.2 trillion annually between now and 2030 to meet its SDG financing gap. With traditional sources of social investment like aid and government funding unlikely to fill this gap, we need to turn to the global financial and capital markets for the requisite investments,’ said Dr. Frank Aswani, the CEO of AVPA. ‘This demands a good understanding of the social investment landscape on the continent and increasing collaboration amongst social investors by breaking down existing silos between providers of grants, debt and equity. We are taking the first step in this direction with this study. It provides a baseline against which we can track future progress and key trends that will influence the increased flow of capital into social investments in Africa while working collaboratively to identify programmatic interventions for creating increased social impact.’

Africa needs an estimated $500 billion – $1.2 trillion annually between now and 2030 to meet its SDG financing gap.

Key findings of the report include that corporates and corporate foundations are emerging as strong drivers of regional social investment ecosystems in Africa; the majority of social investment capital deployed across the regions continues to come from international sources with a growing number of active regionally based social investors; and that social investment programmes differ by region – in sub-Saharan Africa, support largely goes to basic services like health and education, while in North Africa, the focus is on economic empowerment and entrepreneurship initiatives.

To learn more about AVPA or read the report, click here.