Development finance leaders, ministers and entrepreneurs meeting in Brazzaville on Monday, on the sidelines of the African Development Bank Group's 2026 Annual Meetings, made the case that private enterprise and intra-regional trade are the principal engines of Africa's transformation.
The Private Sector Forum, organised by the Bank Group, was held under the theme: Role and challenges of private enterprise in developing economic corridors and the structural transformation of African economies through the industrialization of cross-border value chains and intra-regional trade.
In Africa, the private sector generates more than 80 percent of public revenue and more than 90 percent of jobs in the continent's developing economies, where small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for roughly 90 percent of all private firms. Yet too few of them manage to grow into large enterprises, held back above all by limited access to finance.
Léandre Bassolé, Director General for the Central Africa region at the African Development Bank, representing the President of the Bank, placed the private sector at the heart of the institution's strategic roadmap in his remarks. "Driven under the leadership of President Sidi Ould Tah, our strategic vision recognizes a fundamental reality: the private sector is not a peripheral actor in development. It must become one of the central engines of Africa's economic transformation," he said, adding "We must create mechanisms capable of connecting African savings, institutional investors, commercial banks, development institutions, financial markets and transformative projects."
The Director General urged Forum participants to explore partnerships, innovation and private enterprise as three pathways toward a private sector-led economic transformation across the African continent.
Tatsushi Amano, Executive Director of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), stressed the value of partnership.
"Japanese companies are taking a growing interest in Africa's potential," Amano said "What attracts them are two simple things: growth and market size. That is why local partnerships are essential. Japanese companies are looking for reliable, solid partners committed for the long term. So, the message is simple: if strong companies emerge in the region of the Economic Community of Central African States, Japanese companies will come, and the Japan Bank will be there to support them."
Mariam Yago-Touré, Managing Director at United Bank for Africa, stressed that implementing the African Continental Free Trade Area should be a priority. "It (the AfCFTA) is what will allow African economies to integrate and give local SMEs greater prospects. With the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPS), we are moving quickly toward operationalisation, because it is the development of this payment system that will facilitate intra-regional currency exchange," said Ms. Yago-Touré.
Nancy Chenard, Executive Secretary of the Congolese employers' federation (UNICONGO), said, "For a long time our economies rested on the exploitation of natural resources. But today we know that to achieve sustainable growth we cannot rely on extraction alone. We need to go much further -- toward transformation, diversification, industrialization and innovation -- and to do that we need African companies capable of growing, financing themselves and extending their reach well beyond their borders."
Ismaël Nabé, Guinea's Minister of Planning, International Cooperation and Development pointed to an example in his own country. "From now on we must build integrated projects; an isolated project cannot serve Africa... With the Simandou 2040 project, for example, a $20 billion mining venture, local content has become a reality -- more than 60,000 jobs have been created for the Guinean private sector. Forty percent of the financing for development will come from the private sector," Mr. Nabé said.
The event also featured a presentation of the Bank Group's Private Sector Development Strategy, including the institution's role in financing entrepreneurship, SMEs, national champions and African multinationals, as well as its work to support private sector development through improving the business climate, facilitating access to socio-economic infrastructure and providing direct financing to private enterprise.
Michel Djombo, the Republic of Congo's Minister for Industrial Development, Special Economic Zones and Private Sector Promotion closed the event. He urged participants to draw lessons from the forum and personally committed to steering his department's private sector support policies in line with the recommendations that emerged from it.
