#UNGA81 Remarks by Deputy Chairperson at AU-UN Top Table

AFRICAN UNION-UNITED NATIONS TOP TABLE

"Building Together, Scaling Faster: Structuring Capital for Africa"

UNSTOPPABLE AFRICA 2026

New York, United States of America

20 September 2026

• Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Government,

• Your Excellency Ms Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations,

• Ms Sanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact,

• Excellencies, Distinguished business leaders,

• Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour to be with you this morning for this Top Table on mobilising capital at the scale required for Africa's transformation. I bring warm greetings from the African Union family in Addis Ababa, and I am pleased that the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, will join us later this morning, together with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

I thank the Deputy Secretary-General, my dear sister and partner in development, Ms Amina J. Mohammed, for her leadership in strengthening the African Union-United Nations partnership. I also thank my sister, Ms Sanda Ojiambo, and the United Nations Global Compact, through the Global Africa Business Initiative, for convening this Top Table.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The question before us goes to the heart of Africa's transformation: how do we mobilise capital at the scale our ambitions require, and ensure that it reaches the productive opportunities capable of transforming our economies?

For years, the debate has begun with the financing gap: how much Africa needs, and where external resources might be found. That remains important. But another question is moving to the centre of our agenda: how much of Africa's own capital can we mobilise, multiply and direct towards Africa's transformation?

This question is more urgent, as concessional resources come under pressure and international capital remains costly. Africa will continue to engage with the United Nations and our partners on reform of the global financial architecture. At the same time, we must strengthen our own capacity to finance our development.

Africa has substantial resources in pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, banks and other institutional investors. Yet too little becomes the long-term productive investment our economies require. Our challenge is therefore not only the availability of capital. It is the architecture that connects capital to opportunity.

This is why the African Union supports the New African Financial Architecture for Development, NAFAD, being advanced by the African Development Bank. Its premise is clear: Africa has substantial savings of its own. The task is to convert more of them into productive investment and use strong African financial institutions to mobilise capital at greater scale.

African institutions can expand access to capital through their balance sheets and credit standing; guarantees can share risk; and institutional investors can play a greater role in financing Africa's productive economy. Their strength should be measured not only by the capital they hold, but by how effectively they multiply it across the continent, for the continent.

We are also addressing how money moves across Africa. Afreximbank, working with the AfCFTA Secretariat and participating African central banks, has developed the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, PAPSS, enabling cross-border payments in African currencies. We cannot speak of expanding intra-African trade while moving money between our economies remains unnecessarily difficult and costly.

We are also addressing how African risk is assessed. Through the African Peer Review Mechanism, we are advancing the Africa Credit Rating Agency. Africa is not asking for risk to be ignored or different standards applied. We are strengthening our capacity to contribute to credible, independent and context-informed assessments of African economies and enterprises.

Taken together, these initiatives strengthen Africa's capacity to mobilise its own capital, finance connecting infrastructure, move money across its market, and contribute more directly to how African risk is understood.

For the African Union, this financial architecture is inseparable from the wider economic architecture we are building. Agenda 2063 gives us the vision. The African Continental Free Trade Area is building the market. Infrastructure, energy and regional corridors are connecting that market. Our financial architecture must provide the capital that allows African enterprise to produce, trade and grow across it.

These are not separate agendas. A continental market without capital to build productive capacity will not deliver its full promise. Equally, mobilising African capital without productive opportunities, infrastructure and integrated markets will not deliver the transformation we seek.

Let me however be clear: Financial sovereignty is not financial isolation.

Africa does not seek to replace international capital with African capital. A stronger African financial architecture should make Africa a stronger partner for international investors. African capital can provide the foundation; African institutions can structure transactions and share risk; and international capital can come alongside it at greater scale. What changes is Africa's capacity to participate more actively in determining how its development is financed, how risk is shared and where capital is directed.

But even the strongest architecture will not transform our economies simply because we establish it. It must be used.

The private sector must therefore help shape these systems in practice: bringing forward viable investments capable of attracting long-term institutional capital; building enterprises for a continental, not only national, market; and telling us candidly where capital is not reaching viable opportunities, where cross-border transactions remain difficult, and where policy and institutions are not keeping pace with enterprise.

Ultimately, success will be measured not by the number of institutions we establish, but by whether African savings finance African infrastructure, industries and enterprises; whether viable businesses access capital on better terms; whether enterprises transact more easily across our borders; and whether African businesses can grow to continental and global scale.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Africa has defined the vision. We are building the market. We are strengthening the financial architecture. The task now is to bring these pieces together, so that African capital, African institutions and African enterprise can work together at the scale required for our continent's transformation.

That is the opportunity before this Top Table: not simply to ask how Africa can attract more capital, but how African and international capital can work more effectively to build the productive capacity, value chains and enterprises that will drive Africa's transformation.

I look forward to our exchange this morning and to hearing where the remaining barriers lie and what it will take for the architecture we are building to work at the scale our ambitions demand.

I thank you.