Financing SMEs in Africa: Rethinking the Role of Development Finance Institutions
April 08, 2025
It encompasses the full range of activities undertaken by impact investors across the continent.
The Chair is coordinated by Jean-Louis Arcand, Mariam Djibo, and Jean-Michel Severino, with support from Florian Léon and Sitraka Rabary.
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.
In this context, the Chair Impact Investing aims to:
↪ 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.
↪ A comprehensive map detailing impact investors active in Africa has been compiled, listing over 300 investors. The database is available on FERDI’s website and offers a detailed analysis of the sector’s key trends and dynamics.
↪ The results of this mapping exercise were published under the title “Impact investing in Africa: a 2024 analytical map”. The main findings were presented at several high-level events (seminars, conferences, and exhibitions), including two high-level seminars in Abidjan on 20 June 2024 and in Cotonou on 12–13 November 2024.
↪ FERDI is now a member of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and sits on the Advisory Committee of the Sub-Saharan Africa Knowledge Hub, scheduled for launch in 2025.
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