Several African ministers, officials from international financial institutions and the private sector met on Monday, May 24, in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, to discuss ways for transforming public assets to finance priority infrastructure projects.
The discussions took place during a roundtable titled “Transforming Public Assets into Capital: Unlocking the Potential of Asset Recycling in Africa.” The event was organised by the investment organization, Africa50, in collaboration with the African Development Bank Group (the Bank Group), at the 61st Annual Meetings of the pan-African development finance institution taking place from 24 to 29 May in Brazzaville.
With many African countries facing growing debt pressures, tighter public budgets, and increasingly frequent external shocks, the key question is how to finance infrastructure in a more strategic and sustainable manner. Infrastructure is considered essential for boosting growth, supporting competitiveness, strengthening regional integration, and creating jobs.
During the roundtable, speakers stressed that African countries should accelerate the recycling of public assets — a mechanism through which governments monetise certain existing assets, such as roads, ports, airports, or energy networks, to finance new projects.
Participants emphasised that this approach could help reduce Africa’s infrastructure financing gap, estimated by the African Development Bank at USD150 billion per year, while also attracting more private investment into sectors considered strategic for the continent’s economic growth.
“Asset recycling is essential. It provides governments with a concrete way to unlock the value of mature public assets, attract private capital and expertise, and reinvest the proceeds into new priority infrastructure,” said the President of the Bank Group, Dr Sidi Ould Tah, who delivered the opening speech.
He added that the Bank Group aims to support African countries in making asset recycling investable, scalable, development-oriented, and impactful.
Dr Sidi Ould Tah urged African countries to move from concept to pipeline, from pipeline to transactions, and from transactions to a continental asset recycling platform.
For Alain Ebobissé, CEO of Africa50, the question is no longer whether public assets should be recycled, but rather “how to recycle them in a transparent and more effective way.”
Speakers at the roundtable agreed that the continent possesses assets, institutions, and significant pools of long-term capital. They stressed that proceeds from asset recycling should not be used to cover budget deficits, but rather to create sustainable and renewable sources of development financing.
In Senegal where public debt stands at around “119 to 120%” of GDP, a recent inventory revealed that 40% of assets could be recycled to substantially reduce the deficit and ease the state debt burden, according to the Minister of Economy, Planning and Cooperation, Abdourahmane Sarr, “Some assets can be transferred to the private sector to reduce Senegal’s sovereign risk, while others are not yet mature,” he explained.
His counterpart from Côte d’Ivoire, Souleymane Diarrassouba, Minister of Planning and Development, emphasized the need for reforms to attract investors. He noted that the sovereign wealth fund recently established by the Ivorian government could serve as a vehicle for investment in major infrastructure projects.
Mauritania’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Development, Abdallah Ould Souleymane Ould Cheikh Sidia, highlighted ports and energy assets as important and capable of supporting transformative infrastructure investments and stimulating the development of Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises (SMEs).
The President of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), Abdullah Almusaibeeh, stated that his institution was open to partnerships involving the private sector to help African countries innovate in resource mobilisation.
Manuel Moses, CEO of African Trade and Investment Development Insurance (ATIDI), asked African governments to better secure recyclable public assets and to invest the proceeds where people needed them most.
Other ministers attending the event stressed the importance of building credible project pipelines and improving transaction preparation.