By Dr Sidi Ould Tah, President, African Development Bank Group
Africa is, at its core, an entrepreneurial continent; innovative, resourceful, and primed to create solutions wherever gaps exist. More than 90 per cent of its businesses are Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs). Collectively, they account for over 80 per cent of employment across the continent.
Every day, millions of Africans rise with extraordinary ambition and confidence and dedicate themselves to their work, leveraging the tools available to them – Short Message Service (SMS), the internet, social media, point-of-sale terminals, and more to build businesses, create jobs, and generate real economic value that sustains households and entire communities.
They do this despite formidable challenges. Giving up is rarely an option. Instead, while doing their very best, with boundless tenacity and indomitable spirit, they also look to governments, financial institutions, and development partners to provide the enabling support required for scale: securing access to affordable credit, providing reliable electricity, assisting with processes to formalise their businesses, enhancing facilitation of cross-border opportunities, and providing more transparent, less onerous tax systems.
Often, it turns out, even modest interventions can go a very long way.
The African MSMEs landscape is overwhelmingly young and female – yet these very demographics face the steepest obstacles. Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with half its population under 20 and nearly two-thirds under 35. By 2030, two out of every five young people in the world will be African – a clear signal that Africa’s future will shape the world’s future, and that the 21st century can indeed belong to Africa.
Against this backdrop, we have no choice but to convert this demographic reality into an economic advantage for our young people, the continent, and the global economy. The alternative is unthinkable, as hundreds of millions of frustrated and unemployed youths pose far-reaching implications for continental and global peace and security.
It is for this reason that the focus of the 2026 Africa Prosperity Dialogues on the intersection of youth, women, and SMEs is both timely and necessary. The Dialogues recognise a simple truth: Africa’s growth must be driven by the engines it already possesses in abundance, that is, MSMEs, youth, and women. And these engines must operate at full capacity to generate all the benefits that are available from being the world’s largest free trade area in terms of the number of participating countries. Operating at full capacity means investing in skills and education, with a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) knowledge and digital skills, preparing our youth to flourish in this rapidly evolving Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Synergy, Scale, Speed, and Sustainability
At the African Development Bank Group, these are all priorities we are pursuing with urgency and purpose. Guided by our Four Cardinal Points strategic vision, emphasising a “4S” approach of Synergy, Scale, Speed, and Sustainability. It is principally designed to unleash Africa’s full potential.
The first Cardinal Point is unlocking Africa’s full capacity to mobilise and deploy capital through both traditional and innovative financial models and tapping underutilised sources of financing such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and domestic savings.
The second is rebuilding Africa’s financial sovereignty by reforming and consolidating financial systems. As capital is unlocked, we must also strengthen the frameworks that manage that capital by lowering risk, reducing borrowing costs, and ensuring Africans have greater control over how their resources are invested. Anchored to this strategic vision is the New African Financial Architecture (NAFA), a coordinated, private-sector-led ecosystem designed to support Africa in financing its own development.
The third Cardinal Point focuses on turning the continent’s burgeoning demography into an economic dividend. As I have noted above, Africa’s youth, women, and MSMEs are not challenges to be managed; they are engines of growth to be unleashed. We must move millions of African MSMEs out of the informal sector to tap into the benefits of formalisation, which allows them to access finance and social protection while fostering a culture of domestic resource mobilisation.
By removing barriers and providing the appropriate catalysts, we empower them to flourish, and when they thrive, the continent thrives.
The fourth Cardinal Point is building resilient infrastructure and driving value addition. The Africa we envision rests on modern, durable transport, power networks, strong digital connectivity, robust education and health systems designed to withstand environmental threats. It also means processing and manufacturing more of what we produce, rather than exporting raw materials. For example, the African Development Bank’s African Economic Outlook projects that investing in local battery processing and manufacturing hubs could generate 32 billion USD in additional exports annually, add 24 billion USD to GDP, and create 2.3 million jobs.
Together, these four Cardinal Points are aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
They also align with the ambition of the Africa Prosperity Network to build a vibrant and self-sustaining continental market under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) framework – one of the surest pathways to enduring prosperity. We already know that intra-African trade remains below 20 per cent – the lowest of any continent; and that by trading more with one another and integrating our markets through the African Continental Free Trade Area, we can expand opportunity, build resilience, and loosen the grip of poverty on millions of our people.
On a more positive note, in December 2025, the African Development Fund’s 17th replenishment (ADF-17) secured a record 11 billion USD to empower Africa’s 37 most vulnerable nations by 2028. This cycle marks a strategic evolution toward a “co-investment” platform, prioritising youth, women SMEs, and human capital as the essential pillars for the continent’s demographic and economic transformation.
We must all do more. Under the umbrella of our envisioned new financial architecture, there is space for all who are committed to Africa’s progress.