Gnassingbé Urges Africa to Fund Infrastructure with Its Own Capital
Thursday, 30 October 2025 18:30 
(Togo First) - Council President Faure Gnassingbé urged African countries to develop frameworks to channel their substantial domestic financial resources into regional infrastructure, industrial, and energy projects. He spoke on October 28 at the third Luanda Summit on Financing African Infrastructure in Angola.
Gnassingbé noted that large pools of African capital, from pension and sovereign wealth funds to insurance and household savings, remain invested outside the continent, often in low-yield assets.
“Our continent has considerable financial resources,” he said. “Much of this capital is underused or invested abroad. We must turn this trend around. It is time to create instruments capable of channeling these African resources into regional, industrial, and energy infrastructure.”
For Togo, he added, mobilizing these resources will require bolder financial engineering, including public-private co-investment platforms, regional investment vehicles, and African credit guarantee schemes to strengthen investor confidence.
Gnassingbé emphasized that the continent’s banks and financial institutions have a central role to play in pooling risks, mobilizing capital, and reinforcing economic sovereignty.
“African institutions must take the lead,” he said. “Infrastructure financing will not come solely from external aid; it depends on our capacity to harness our own resources to build the Africa we want.”
The Togolese leader also underlined the strategic role of infrastructure, especially road networks, in enhancing competitiveness. “When a transport corridor functions properly, logistics costs drop and transit times fall. That’s how landlocked countries become true trading hubs,” he added.
African leaders at the summit also discussed strategic investment opportunities under the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) and the African Union’s Master Plan for Regional and Continental Connectivity.
