NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Africa offers arguably the highest potential impact investment opportunities globally and is poised for strong economic growth. However, this can only happen if these opportunities are strategically matched with innovative and impactful capital investments that address social needs and also offer financial returns where appropriate. The current reality sees development aid decreasing and government funding shrinking while the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) financing gap continues to widen. This new landscape requires diversifying capital sources for social investments beyond grants, and embracing private players and capital markets as a burgeoning source of social financing.

To this end, the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA) and investorflow.org are announcing a strategic partnership to further promote impact investing across Africa. The two organizations aim to achieve this by connecting investors on both of their virtual platforms to each other and to a growing list of vetted, investable deals. The partnership opens up the two organizations’ members to deals beyond their geographical locations, North America for the AVPA members and Africa’s growing social investment landscape for investorflow.org members.

“This is an exciting partnership that will allow AVPA to add another 500 plus investors onto the AVPA Deal Share Platform and most importantly into the African social investment community,” says Dr. Frank Aswani, the CEO of AVPA. “It will enable greater co-investment and flow of financial, human, and intellectual capital into African social investments. AVPA will continue to seek strategic partnerships of this nature to grow its community of investors and pipeline of deals with a view to promoting investment collaboration.”

This partnership will ultimately strengthen the two networks while increasing the flow of capital deployed to address many of Africa’s most pressing social challenges. This is seen as a net gain for Africa’s social investment landscape.

“We are delighted to partner with AVPA. For the more than 500 investors on our global network, Africa represents the second most preferred geography for their impact investments. By working closely with AVPA, we look forward to making it easier for our investors and theirs to learn about and co-invest in impactful opportunities across the African continent,” says Matt Eldridge, Co-founder of investorflow.org.

AVPA and investorflow.org firmly believe that their partnership will lead to increased investor collaboration and the mobilization of capital that can help grow and scale social investments across Africa.

Photo courtesy of Micheile Henderson.