ADDIS ABABA, February -African leaders are backing a new financial architecture designed to unlock the continent’s economic potential and reduce dependence on external capital.
The New African Financial Architecture (NAFA) was presented by Dr Sidi Ould Tah, President of the African Development Bank Group, at the 39th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.
Held over two days on 14 and 15 February, the 39th Summit focused on the theme: “Ensuring the sustainable availability of safe water and sanitation systems to achieve the goals of Agenda 2063.”
“Africa is not lacking in ambition. Agenda 2063 gives us a vision. Our National Energy Pacts, our trade agreements, our infrastructure frameworks, all of these give us plans,” Dr Ould Tah said, adding that “The problem is not a lack of resources. This is the architecture of risk and capital.”
NAFA aims to transform how Africa mobilises and deploys its resources, focusing on four key areas, including Unleashing African Capital to tap into savings and institutional funds to finance development.
It will also focus on Rebuilding Financial Sovereignty to strengthen Africa’s position in global financial governance and on Transforming Demographic Assets to support youth and women’s entrepreneurship and regional value chains.
“By building Resilient Infrastructure, we will be accelerating industrialisation and promoting economic integration,” remarked Dr Tah, who assumed office as the ninth President of the Bank on 1 September last year.
“The NAFA initiative is not merely a slogan; it represents a deliberate reorganisation of how Africa mobilises, allocates, and deploys its capital for development, a decisive shift from fragmentation to coordination, from isolated transactions to systemic scale, and from dependence on external capital toward genuine financial sovereignty,” Dr Ould Tah emphasised.
During the Summit, Burundi’s President Évariste Ndayishimiye was elected as the new Chairperson of the African Union for 2026, succeeding Angolan President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço.
In a statement endorsing the African Development Bank’s flagship continental initiatives, African leaders congratulated President Ould Tah on his election to lead the continent’s premier development finance institution, describing it as a recognition of “his ability to steer the institution in advancing Africa’s transformation and integration agenda.”
The Heads of State and Government also welcomed President Ould Tah’s strategic vision, anchored in the “Four Cardinals” and NAFA. In this regard, the Bank Group is expected to present a progress report on the operationalisation of NAFA at the next African Union coordination meeting, scheduled for six months.
