Impact Investing Chair

Impact investment is a fast-growing asset class internationally. However, the definition of impact investing itself remains unclear: it is neither for-profit nor a socially responsible investment, although it has close links with social entrepreneurship. There is also no general method or framework for measuring the impact of investments. Each investor defines and applies their own.

The Impact Investment Chair aims to:

• Provide a better understanding of the impact investing sector in Africa;  
• Contribute to a standardization of the concept, which is essential for its legitimacy and for understanding the capacities and limits of impact investment;
•  Study the effects of impact investing on the development of African countries; 
• Propose a reflection on the current questions that arise on the sustainable development of this sector. 

Its work will cover the activities of impact investors across the African continent. 

↪ Provide better knowledge of the impact investment sector in Africa.

↪ Contribute to a standardization of the concept, essential to its legitimacy and to the understanding of the capacities and limits of impact investment. 

↪ Study the effects of impact investing on the development of African countries.

↪ Propose a reflection on the current questions that arise about the sustainable development of this sector.

• Jean-Louis Arcand, Director of the International Economics department at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Former Founding Director of the Center for Finance and Development.
• Mariam Djibo, Managing Director of Advans Côte d'Ivoire
• Jean-Michel Severino, Chairman of Investisseurs et partenaires (I&P), FERDI Senior Fellow.