Africa is a continent with a great potential. Its past has been difficult and formidable challenges to further development remain. The continent faces an enormous infrastructure gap, while the investment climate and regulatory environment are improving.
Africa: the new frontier for opportunities
Significant differences exist among individual countries, and those that have seized the opportunity and implemented far-reaching reforms are now harvesting better results. Thanks to the reformist economies, transition and progress on the continent is real and well established. Over the last ten years, real economic growth in the region has averaged 5 to 7 percent per year, consistently above the world average. Some of the fastest-growing countries in the world have been from sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, 5 sub-Saharan African countries outgrew China and 22 outgrew India. Commodities, while important for the region, have not been the only source of sustained growth: working-age population is growing, urbanization is rising, technological advances are emerging in many layers of the economy, labour productivity has increased, investment has outpaced aid with increased interest in the region, while macroeconomic and structural policy implementation and institutional capacity have improved.
The financing gap
New estimates by the African Development Bank suggest that the continent’s infrastructure needs amount to $130–170 billions a year, with a nancing gap in the range $68–$108 billions. Institutional investors such as insurance companies, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds have more than $100 trillion in assets under management globally. A small fraction of the excess global savings and low-yield resources would be enough to plug Africa’s nancing gap and nance productive and pro table infrastructure.
B&A is expanding into Africa to support its clients
B&A’s brand is built on a strong belief in linking maturity economies and growth economies. B&A is convinced by the potential of the African continent. This is what convinced its leaders to accelerate this strategy : to support the emergence of the African continent still under-funded, but which very promising economy will see the creation and development of regional champions which will become world leaders in the next decades.