{"id":85680,"date":"2026-02-25T07:04:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T07:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/africa-business-forum-advocates-bold-investments"},"modified":"2026-02-25T08:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T08:06:18","slug":"africa-business-forum-advocates-bold-investments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/africa-business-forum-advocates-bold-investments","title":{"rendered":"Africa Business Forum Advocates Bold Investments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Eswatini. <\/strong> <\/span><b>The Africa Business Forum (ABF) 2026 concluded in Addis Ababa, with a strong call for long-term, risk-tolerant investment to unlock Africa\u2019s innovation potential and power inclusive, job-rich growth across the continent.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Organised by the Economic Commission for Africa on the margins of the African Union Summit recently, the Forum launched a Jobs Wall Commitment Tracker to capture, showcase, and track public and private sector job commitments and shared.<\/p>\n<p>Held under the theme, \u201cFinancing the Future of Africa: Jobs and Innovation for Sustainable Transformation,\u201d the Forum convened Heads of State, business and creative sector leaders, policymakers, and development financiers to forge new pathways for sustainable industrialisation and market integration.<\/p>\n<p>Participants agreed that Africa\u2019s demographic surge is a strategic economic opportunity that requires decisive investment in research, innovation, and entrepreneurial ecosystems\u2014anchored in risk-tolerant, growth-oriented capital rather than aid.<\/p>\n<p>The Forum stressed that structural transformation must be driven by an integrated regional value chain and the full realisation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).<\/p>\n<p>This entails harmonised regulations, lower capital costs, and cross-border enterprise growth to drive sustainable job creation.<\/p>\n<p>Leaders from across the public and private sectors also called for a shift in development finance toward ecosystem-based investment models linking infrastructure, industrial value chains, digital markets, and green energy systems to durable employment outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>They reaffirmed that women\u2019s economic participation must be institutionalised as a central pillar of this transformation, not treated as an add-on.<\/p>\n<p>Ethiopia\u2019s President Taye Atske Selassie highlighted the country\u2019s experience in creating jobs for youth through startups and innovation, urging action on agriculture transformation, youth and women-led startups and the need to fast-track AfCFTA integration to advance sustainable development.<\/p>\n<p>He underscored that Africa\u2019s transformation is not an abstract idea or distant ambition; it must be visible in factories that hire, farms that add value, digital platforms that reach markets and creative industries that turn youth talent into human capital.<\/p>\n<p>Somalia\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister, Salah Ahmed Jama, highlighted his country\u2019s transformational multi-pronged efforts underway, including a national ID system, holistic policies linked to education and industrial policy, market demands to create jobs from livestock and fisheries value chains that contribute seven per cent to the country\u2019s economy, underpinned, he noted, by a silencing the guns agenda.<\/p>\n<p>ECA Executive Secretary, Claver Gatete, noted that as global capital becomes more selective and concentrated, scale, security and future markets are assured. \u201cThe question is not whether capital exists,\u201d he stressed. \u201cThe real question is: where will the next engines of global growth emerge?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He argued that with the world\u2019s youngest workforce, accelerating urbanization, rapid digital adoption and expanding consumer markets, the Continent is already undergoing a structural transformation anchored in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is creating a single market of over 1.5 billion people.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, from youth-led cocoa processing in Co\u0302te d\u2019Ivoire, an integrated automotive value chain in Morocco, to Ethiopia\u2019s expanding digital payments ecosystem, as evidence that Africa is beginning to export value, not just raw commodities.<\/p>\n<p>Key Forum recommendations included reshape Africa\u2019s risk narrative and unlock affordable long-term capital by mobilising domestic resources and launching de-risking facilities to attract investment into SMEs and productive sectors; anchor financing on value addition and industrial processing, using standardised public\u2013private partnership frameworks to lower capital costs and draw large-scale investors.<\/p>\n<p>Others are shift development finance toward ecosystem-based transformation, integrating value chains, digital markets, and Special Economic Zones as growth anchors, leverage digital technology and Artificial Intelligence to strengthen education systems, improve data governance, and guide evidence-based investment and align universities, skills systems, and entrepreneurship ecosystems with market needs to accelerate innovation and enterprise growth.<\/p>\n<p>The Forum concluded that Africa\u2019s transformation depended on financing its own future-investing in people, ideas, and innovation to drive sustainable growth.<\/p>\n<p>It admitted that building partnerships with Africa, not merely in Africa, would be key to ensuring that capital flows align with the continent\u2019s priorities and potential.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Eswatini<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Eswatini. The Africa Business Forum (ABF) 2026 concluded in Addis Ababa, with a strong call for long-term, risk-tolerant investment to unlock Africa\u2019s innovation potential and power inclusive, job-rich growth across the continent. Organised by the Economic Commission for Africa on the margins of the African Union Summit recently, the Forum launched a Jobs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":85679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-85680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","tag-eswatini"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Africa Business Forum Advocates Bold Investments - Eswatini<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Eswatini. The Africa Business Forum ( ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/africa-business-forum-advocates-bold-investments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Africa Business Forum Advocates Bold Investments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Eswatini. 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