On Sunday 4 October, Emmanuel Macron hosted the business leaders of the Africa-France Impact Coalition at the Élysée Palace, with Benin’s President Romuald Wadagni as guest of honour. Five months after the Nairobi summit, the coalition is becoming a permanent fixture. That leaves three questions about the €23 billion announced in May: what it covers,...

Gabon is more than 80 per cent forest and absorbs far more carbon than it emits. It has spent years trying to turn that into revenue. Buyers remain sceptical, and the market has turned against them. Gabon’s pitch is simple. Its forests store carbon, the country has kept deforestation low, and the world says it...

Beijing has promised duty-free access to its market for African countries that recognise it. The offer removes the tariff. It does not remove the standards, the logistics or the volumes — which is where Central African exporters usually fail. China announced in 2025 that it would extend zero-tariff treatment to the full range of tariff...

First announced in Cairo in late 2023, relaunched in Algiers, “launched” in Kigali and finally given a manager in July 2026, Afreximbank’s pan-African film fund still carries the same headline figure: one billion dollars. The reality behind it is more fragile. The capital has yet to be raised. The manager has no public track record...

Why Central Africa’s banks do not finance Central Africa — and what architecture could make them I. Anatomy of a rational bank — II. Bankability is not a quality of the project; it is infrastructure — III. Who actually finances young entrepreneurs? — IV. Why the region does not take off: four explanations, three of...

Investigation. The thirteenth edition of AFSIC – Investing in Africa takes place on 13 and 14 October 2026 at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in London. Billed as the largest annual African investment gathering held outside the continent, the conference is targeting 1,500 delegates, 350 investors and 350 profiled projects seeking more than US$10 billion....

In seven months, three CEMAC sovereigns raised roughly $2.52 billion on international bond markets at coupons between 8.9% and 9.5%. In the whole of 2025, Central African companies attracted $27 million in venture capital — 0.7% of Africa’s total. That gap, not the absence of capital, is the region’s real financing problem. AFSIC – Investing...

Ask a hundred founders whether they are investor ready and ninety will show you a deck. Fifteen slides, a chart bending up and to the right, a market size with eleven digits. The document is clean. It proves nothing. A deck describes what a company wants to be. Investor readiness describes what it is —...