The African Development Bank (AfDB) has estimated that if Africa developed stronger tax and non-tax mobilization, it could generate an estimated $469 billion in additional annual revenues, as well as about $299 billion in potential savings from improved public investment efficiency.
The Bank also highlighted that public-private partnerships are a powerful lever, with each additional dollar of public investment tied to approximately $1.40 in private investment.
It is included in the 2026 African Economic Outlook released at the AfDB Group's annual meeting in Brazzaville, which outlines the continent's continued resilience in the face of geopolitical tensions, tight global financial conditions and supply chain disruptions.
The report forecasts Africa's economies could grow at 4.2 percent in 2026, slowing slightly to 4.4 percent in 2025, before picking up to 4.4 percent in 2027.
According to the Bank's flagship report, Africa's growth to 2025 was supported by better macroeconomic management, stronger agricultural production, higher commodity prices and ongoing structural reforms. The continent remains one of the fastest growing regions in the world, with 22 countries projected to have growth rates above 5 percent in 2025.
The report, published under the theme Mobilizing Africa's development financing at scale in a fragmented world, says sustaining faster, inclusive and more resilient growth will require a decisive shift in how capital is mobilized and deployed at scale.
This includes strengthening domestic resource mobilization, deepening and integrating financial systems, expanding capital markets, and enhancing African agency in global finance.
Institutional investors, including pension funds, insurers and sovereign wealth funds, manage approximately $4 trillion of assets; Yet less than 2.7 percent has been allocated to infrastructure and productive sectors in Africa, underscoring significant untapped potential.
The report calls for accelerated efforts to strengthen Africa's financial systems through pan-African banks, integrated capital markets, and innovative tools such as climate and Islamic finance. A central pillar of this is the New African Financial Architecture for Development (NAFAD), which aims to leverage over $4 trillion of assets within Africa's financial ecosystem.
The report also highlights the role of the African Credit Rating Agency, launched in January 2026, as an important tool to address perceived biases in sovereign risk assessments. While Africa's stock market capitalization is set to reach $1.2 trillion in 2024 – a nearly sixfold increase in two decades – activity remains concentrated in South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Morocco, pointing to the need for broader market integration.
The report underlines the importance of advancing continental initiatives such as the African Financing Stability Mechanism to ease liquidity pressures, strengthen financial stability and help African countries manage debt refinancing risks at lower costs.
At the heart of the 2026 AEO report is a stark assessment of Africa's development financing shortfall: the continent faces an annual gap of more than $1.3 trillion to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. The African Development Bank attributes the deficit to low domestic resource mobilisation, weak financial intermediation and tightening external financing conditions.
However, he argues that the issue is not only of lack of resources, but also of deploying capital effectively.
With appropriate reforms, Africa can reach $1.43 trillion annually through better revenue collection, more efficient public investment, reduction of illicit financial flows and corruption, deeper capital markets, expanded public-private partnerships, diaspora financing and better use of natural capital.