Heads of Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs) on Sunday declared their support for the new African Financial Architecture, proposed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, aimed at mobilising domestic capital on the continent to bridge Africa’s development financing gap.
The positive sentiments were expressed during a fruitful meeting between AfDB President Sidi Ould Tah, President of the African Development Bank Group, and heads of the RECs on the margins of the 39th African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa.
The meeting focused on the New African Financial Architecture (NAFA), a homegrown, transformative framework aimed at mobilising large-scale domestic capital, strengthening financial sovereignty, and addressing the continent’s persistent development financing gap.
It brought together Chief Executive Officers from the AU-recognised RECs, namely the Arab Maghreb Union, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Community of Sahel-Saharan States, Economic Community of Central African States, Economic Community of West African States, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, and Southern Africa Development Community — alongside the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat.
In his opening remarks, Dr Ould Tah stressed the need to urgently close Africa’s development financing gap by moving beyond fragmented systems toward a coordinated architecture that will unlock Africa’s capital power, rebuild financial sovereignty, support jobs for youth and scale transformative infrastructure investments while promoting industrialisation.
“NAFA is not just a financial plan. It is a blueprint for Africa’s economic transformation. It points to a future where Africa finances its development on its terms, through collaboration, coherence, and leadership,” Dr Ould Tah said.
As a vital pillar of Dr Ould Tah’s “Four Cardinal Points” strategic vision, NAFA serves as the primary engine for reforming Africa’s financial systems and amplifying its unified voice in the global arena. This meeting marks a decisive step in aligning regional priorities with a locally anchored financial model to drive sustainable growth and resilience across the continent.
The regional leaders welcomed the NAFA initiative and shared concrete actions their communities are undertaking to scale up investment in cross-border infrastructure, industrialisation and private sector development. They also highlighted the importance of co-financing platforms, regional implementation capacity and guarantees to de-risk investment pipelines.
Furthermore, the need to curb illicit financial flows was highlighted as a critical factor in strengthening domestic resource mobilisation, given their persistent impact on fiscal sustainability, governance, and Africa’s ability to mobilise its own resources for development.
African Union Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals, Francisca Belobe emphasised the urgency of deepening structural economic reforms and strengthening implementation through closer coordination among African institutions and financial actors.
“There is too much fragmentation in our financial and economic efforts,” she noted, stressing that “this fragmentation weakens scale, visibility, and collective impact across the continent.” She called for “a more integrated and coordinated approach, driven by Africa’s own institutions,” to deliver tangible development results.
She further urged Regional Economic Communities to play a leading role in identifying and supporting African corporate champions, stating that “RECs must help position African enterprises at the centre of Africa’s investment and growth opportunities.”
According to the Commissioner, this approach is essential to anchor industrialisation, strengthen regional value chains, and ensure that Africa’s development is driven by African-led economic actors.
On his part, Secretary General Wamkele Mene welcomed NAFA as a timely accelerator for Africa’s industrialisation and AfCFTA implementation. He underscored the importance of addressing Africa’s infrastructure deficit and leveraging its critical minerals to support regional value chains and sustainable industrial growth.
Chileshe Kapwepwe, Secretary General for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, expressed the importance of RECs “to provide the wheels of integration that NAFA requires to originate and package cross-border projects into investable pipelines and foster effective regional cooperation.”
“We need to spend more time, effort and resources, in market research so that we can clearly identify gaps, then support policy harmonisation and conduct critical skills audits which would inform targeted training, including in new technologies such as AI,” Kapwepwe said.
The high-level session concluded with a shared commitment to bridging the gap between regional policy and economic impact through three key pillars:
• Deepening coordination among the Bank Group, RECs, and African financial institutions;
• Ensuring strategic alignment of flagship regional projects with NAFA investment priorities;
• Promoting accountable impact, ensuring results are measurable, inclusive, and transformational.
This strategic roundtable on the margins of the 2026 AU Summit positions NAFA as a central platform for mobilising Africa’s wealth more effectively, rapidly, and at scale to support the continent’s development ambitions.
The African Development Bank Group will consolidate the outcomes into an implementation roadmap and maintain sustained, high-level engagement with key partners to translate Africa’s Agenda 2063 into concrete, large-scale results.