In a RootsToFoods Capital Series interview, Frannie Léautier argues that Africa ’ s financing constraint is not simply a shortage of money, but a shortage of investable pipelines, risk-sharing instruments and market infrastructure.
Speaking on the RootsToFoods Capital Series podcast, Frannie Léautier pointed to Africa Finance Corporation ’ s 2025 estimate that the continent held more than $4 trillion in domestic financial resources: over $1.1 trillion in long-term institutional capital, $2.5 trillion in commercial-bank assets and more than $470 billion in central-bank reserves. AFC ’ s 2026 update says pension and insurance assets alone have since exceeded $1 trillion and reserves reached $530 billion in 2025.
These pools are not interchangeable. Central-bank reserves safeguard monetary and financial stability; bank assets serve depositors and borrowers; and pension and insurance portfolios must meet fiduciary duties and long-term liabilities. The case is not to redirect the entire sum, but to make a prudent share investable on sound, risk-adjusted terms.
For Léautier, whose three-decade career has included senior roles at the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Trade and Development Bank (TDB) before she became chief executive officer of SouthBridge Investments, the paradox is straightforward. “ There is a lot of capital. Capital is not the real constraint, ” she said. “ What is a constraint is the structure and the trust. ”
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She argues that African institutional investors are responding rationally to the incentives they face. Regulation often favors sovereign instruments. Investable pipelines remain limited relative to financing needs. And investors ’ liquidity requirements rarely match the multi-decade tenor of infrastructure. “ African capital is behaving exactly as the system has designed it to behave, ” she said. “ If we want that capital to flow, we have to change the system. ”
“ If an investor cannot explain the opportunity to their own board in two minutes, they will not invest. ” — Frannie Léautier, Chief Executive Officer, SouthBridge Investments
Drawing on her time at TDB , where institutional investors participated as shareholders and through trade-finance vehicles, Léautier said such investors respond when three things are clear: liquidity horizons, expected returns and governance. The same discipline, she said, should guide funds and platforms designed to channel domestic and international capital into African assets.
The answer is architectural as much as financial. As Expert Chair of the G20-commissioned 2022 Independent Review of Multilateral Development Banks ’ Capital Adequacy Frameworks , Léautier led work that called for clearer risk appetite, appropriate recognition of callable capital, wider financial innovation, better engagement with credit-rating agencies and stronger capital-adequacy governance. She also advocates greater use of syndication and portfolio risk transfers so MDBs can bring other investors into the assets they originate.
Some elements are already in place. In 2024, AfDB became the first MDB to issue sustainable hybrid capital, raising $750 million , and followed with a second $500 million issue in 2025 . The World Bank Group Guarantee Platform , housed at MIGA, brings together guarantee products and experts from the World Bank, IFC and MIGA. These innovations show how balance sheets, guarantees and institutional coordination can be redesigned to mobilize more capital without weakening financial discipline.
That agenda aligns with AfDB President Sidi Ould Tah ’ s emphasis on African financial sovereignty . Léautier said health should be an early test. Total official development assistance from members and associates of the OECD Development Assistance Committee fell 23.1% in real terms in 2025 —the largest annual decline on record, according to preliminary data. The contraction heightens pressure on health and other essential services and strengthens the case for financing systems that are less vulnerable to swings in external aid.
Her prescription has three parts. First, domestic-capital platforms should give pension funds, insurers and other allocators visibility over investment-ready pipelines at national, regional and continental levels. Second, risk should be shared through guarantees and credit enhancement, including the emerging Pan-African Guarantee Mechanism under the AfDB-led New African Financial Architecture for Development, with the African Trade & Investment Development Insurance agency (ATIDI) identified as an anchor. Third, interoperable digital infrastructure should make projects easier for eligible co-financiers to find, assess and finance. One model is the Global Collaborative Co-Financing Platform launched by the World Bank and nine other MDBs, including AfDB, AIIB and EBRD.
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“ We do not need more capital, ” she said. “ What we need is a better architecture to absorb it. ”
Asked what she would change first, Léautier did not name a particular policy. “ I would change the way we look at risk—instead of the risk of losing, the risk of inaction, ” she said. “ The greatest risk for Africa today is not that there is no capital, but that capital is not being deployed fast enough. ”
Frannie Léautier spoke with Ovidiu Bujorean, chief executive officer of OviBees Ventures, for Episode 4 of the RootsToFoods Capital Series. Léautier is chief executive officer of SouthBridge Investments and serves as Counselor to the President of the African Development Bank Group. The views expressed are her own. RootsToFoods Capital Series is produced by OviBees Ventures.
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