Policy Dialogue: Institutional investors and new assets classes investments in Kenya

Making Finance Work for Africa (MFW4A) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) hosted this policy dialogue around the Africa Climate Week (ACW 2023) and following the launch of 2023-2025 Strategy of the Africa Financial Alliance for Climate Change (AFAC), a Pan-African Alliance to foster a transformation of financial portfolios towards green financing. The aim was to bring together key representatives of the Kenyan Capital market and institutional investors ecosystem to discuss how institutional investors can diversify their investments while contributing vigorously to climate action goals and the policy implications along with challenges facing the industry. There are over 1,300 pension funds in Kenya, which together mobilized more than $15 billion in 2022 and would all benefit from the diversification in alternative assets. At continental level, the African Union Development Agency / New Partnership for Africa Development  (AUDA-NEPAD) launched the 5% Agenda, a campaign to increase the allocations of African asset owners to African infrastructure from its low base of approximately 1.5% of their assets under management (AUM) to an impactful 5% of AUM.