GeCAM joins call on AfDB to up private sector financing.

The Cameroonian was categoric that only private sector-led industrialization and economic restructuring can bring sustainable change in the long term.

Brainstorming 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”, the speakers were unanimous that in Africa, the private sector generates more than 80 percent of public revenue and more than 90 percent of jobs. 

They said in economies that are still developing, where small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs account for roughly 90 percent of all private firms, participants justified that too few of them manage to grow into large enterprises because they were held back mostly by limited access to finance.

For her part, 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”. 

Managing Director at United Bank for Africa, Mariam Yago-Touré, stressed that implementing the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, should be a priority. 

“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 Yago-Touré.

The AfDB Group gave participants assurance, through Léandre Bassolé, Director General for the Central Africa region at the African Development Bank, who represented the President of the Bank at the forum. 

He said the AfDB Group had placed the private sector at the heart of its strategic roadmap. 

“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 that: “We must create mechanisms capable of connecting African savings, institutional investors, commercial banks, development institutions, financial markets and transformative projects”. 

The Director General urged all participants to explore partnerships, innovation and private enterprise as three pathways toward a private sector-led economic transformation across the African continent.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3801 of Friday May 29, 2026