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World Leaders explore Cultural IP as Engine IP of Economic Development across African Nations at G20

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Initiative could unlock billions annually for creators and nations from the continent’s creative sectors

JOHANNESBURG– November 24, 2025  – A new G20 roadmap urges that Cultural Intellectual Property (IP)— from creative works such as music and art to digital cultural data—be formally recognized and integrated into macroeconomic and financial frameworks. This roadmap from the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), AXM, and the Africa Investor (Ai) Group positions Africa’s creative industries as a key driver of inclusive economic growth.

  • Cultural intellectual property contributes an estimated US$2.3 trillion to global GDP annually and supports 30 million jobs, according to UNESCO and WIPO data.
  • Cultural industries already represent more than 3% of global GDP (UNESCO), yet remain largely invisible in fiscal models.
  • In Africa alone, the creative sectors could generate over $20 billion annually if IP systems were fully formalized, according to the African Development Bank.
  • McKinsey estimates generative AI will unlock up to US$7.9 trillion in annual economic value — driven largely by the data that trains these models, positioning cultural IP as critical national infrastructure.

The roadmap outlines the framework for governments, multilateral institutions, and investors to establish the systems—registries, standards, and governance protocols—that can unlock culture as an investable public asset. It aligns with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, emphasizing digital sovereignty and the creation of new pathways for African nations to own and monetize their creative and cultural assets.

“We’re mapping an opportunity to build long-term value for African creators and economies,” said Pamla GoPaul, Senior Programme Manager, Africa Policy Bridge Tank, Economic Analysis and Foresight Unit, AUDA-NEPAD. “When we connect cultural production to finance, we strengthen the continent’s global competitiveness and economic resilience.”

The roadmap urges that culture is economic infrastructure and encourages governments to integrate authorship and IP governance into national accounts, investors to recognize cultural IP as an asset class, and multilateral institutions to provide the guarantees that bring these markets to scale.

“Culture is not only memory; it is a macroeconomic engine,” said Dr. Hubert Danso, Chairman and CEO, Africa Investor (Ai) Group. Its revenues flow through creative industries, tourism, digital platforms, and now, artificial intelligence. Yet its rights and governance systems remain fragmented. By aligning policy with innovation and infrastructure with authorship, we propose a concrete path to value, protect, and invest in culture as a productive public good.”

“The world profits from culture, but too often through extraction, not partnership,” said Archie Davis, Co-Founder of AXM, the company developing the infrastructure linking creative IP with financial markets. “Without the proper digital infrastructure, ownership and attribution are not appropriately given to the creators, artists, and cultural workers, and as a result, they are excluded from the very economies they sustain. By linking cultural IP to macroeconomic frameworks, nations can create a pathway for equitable participation in the global digital economy.”

AXM’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) technology, known as the Authorship DPI Standard, provides the infrastructure that modernizes the registration, governance, and licensing of cultural and creative assets, thereby giving cultural works a legal, digital, and economic presence.

Read the report here.

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About AXM
AXM is a patent-pending Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) system that modernizes the registration, governance, and licensing of cultural and creative assets in the era of AI. AXM develops digital public-infrastructure models that enable creators and institutions to record, value, and license their work with transparent and auditable governance.
For creators, estates, and institutions, AXM transforms authorship from an abstract right into programmable infrastructure: measurable, enforceable, and interoperable across human and machine contexts—including AI training and generative outputs.
About African Union Development Agency-NEPAD
The AUDA-NEPAD Africa Policy Bridge Tank is a continental knowledge-to-policy platform that strengthens the interface between African research institutions and decision-makers. It connects African think tanks, academia, and policymakers to co-create evidence-based solutions aligned with Agenda 2063.
Anchored in the African Union’s development vision, the initiative facilitates the co-production of policy-relevant knowledge, strategic foresight, and systems thinking to inform national, regional, and continental development strategies. 
By fostering inclusive, multi-stakeholder dialogues and promoting South-South cooperation, the Africa Policy Bridge Tank contributes to reshaping global governance frameworks and advancing Africa’s agency in multilateral fora.
About Africa Investor (Ai) Group
Africa Investor (Ai) is an institutional investment platform that supports sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, family offices, global investors, and philanthropies to allocate to Africa’s strategic infrastructure, technology, and natural and cultural capital investment opportunities. Through Ai Capital and the Ai Academy, Ai develops fiduciary-grade investment platforms and Institutional Investor–Public Partnership (IIPP) solutions that de-risk and scale institutional allocations.
Ai originates and structures Africa’s thematic advantages into resilient, investable assets that strengthen competitiveness and Make Development Investible.

New G20 Investor Cost-of-Capital Framework Quantifies Trillions in Lost Returns from Fiduciary Inefficiency

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Johannesburg, London, Belém, New York, Tokyo

The Institute of Sovereign Investors, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and Africa Investor (Ai) today launched a new Global Fiduciary Efficiency and Cost of Capital Framework at the G20, revealing substantial investment losses arising from legacy emerging-market risk-measurement systems.

The analysis shows that the 20-year divergence between emerging-market fundamentals and market-implied risk premia — driven by outdated risk-measurement practices rather than changes in fundamentals — has generated USD 4–6 trillion in cumulative lost return opportunities for global pension funds, insurers and sovereign portfolios, equivalent to 30–90 bps of annualised performance drag for universal owners.

It further estimates that emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) face up to USD 15.6 billion in excess annual interest costs and foregone investment opportunities due to structural information asymmetries and limited access to public- and private-sector investor-grade risk data — a gap the GEMs3.0 initiative was expressly developed to help close.

“This is first and foremost a fiduciary excellence agenda. Cost-of-capital improvements are a by-product of correcting how risk is measured — not the motivation. If we want alignment between global investors and emerging markets, we must make development investable, not investment developmental,” said Dr Hubert Danso, CEO of Africa Investor (Ai).

A G20-aligned solution to reduce portfolio leakage

The proposal calls on G20 Leaders to endorse investor-led GEMs3.0 Sandboxes as a global reference platform for modern EM credit-risk transparency.

The sandboxes enable sovereigns, regulators, asset owners and MDBs to test updated risk-measurement tools alongside IMF, World Bank and rating-agency systems — without new mandates or public spending.

Global investor endorsement

“Appropriate allocation and careful consideration on how emerging-market risk is measured and managed is essential for long-horizon investors and for the G20’s financial-stability agenda. Initiatives like the GEMs3.0 Sandboxes can help address better how substantial capital can reach productive, real-economy opportunities.”

 Kristian Flyvholm, Chair & CEO, The Institute of Sovereign Investors

“Efficient capital allocation is a foundation of global economic stability and shared prosperity. Improving the quality, transparency and comparability of risk information — particularly for emerging and developing economies — is essential to unlock long-term investment at scale. The G20’s engagement with initiatives like this framework represents an important step toward a more inclusive, rules-based and investable global economy.”

John W.H. Denton AO, Secretary General, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC); Co-Chair, Finance & Infrastructure, B20

Quantifying the allocation gap for Africa’s industrial opportunity

Despite delivering 16–22% risk-mitigated IRRs, below-average infrastructure default rates, and long-duration offtake demand linked to global transitions, Africa accounts for less than 3% of major benchmark weightings.

This benchmark underweight compounds:

  1. USD 4–6 trillion in cumulative fiduciary underperformance
  2. USD 15.6 billion in annual excess interest costs and foregone EMDE opportunities
  3. S&P’s recalibration, enabled by newly released GEMS risk data, unlocks USD 600–800 billion in MDB lending headroom over the next decade — converting previously lost opportunities in EMDEs into investable capacity.

By modernising risk-signal quality and aligning benchmarks with real-economy fundamentals, the framework enables institutional investors to integrate Africa’s energy, digital, and industrial platforms into long-term portfolios on a fiduciary-compliant basis.

A fiscally neutral G20 reform

The framework calls on G20 Leaders to commit to:

  1. Restoring fiduciary efficiency as a pillar of global financial stability.
  2. Scaling GEMs3.0 Sandboxes as a global reference platform.
  3. Deepening AU–G20 cooperation on Africa’s industrial transition.
  4. Mobilising institutional capital at scale — without reliance on donor funding or new taxes, using fiscally neutral, risk-aligned incentive mechanisms.

Investors described the framework as “the most practical, collaborative and economically significant private-capital mobilisation reform tabled to the COP30 and G20 South Africa Presidencies.”

Read the G20 Investor Cost-of-Capital Framework.

Nature as Infrastructure under IFRS Report Launched for COP30

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Vatican City / London / Belém / Johannesburg — 26 October 2025

The COP30 IFRS Framework for Nature — a Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Lighthouse Report designed to institutionalise Nature on the balance sheet as a recognised, auditable, and investable asset class — was launched following a historic week at the Vatican, where His Majesty King Charles III led the SMI delegation in an audience with His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, aligning faith, finance, and accounting in service of creation.

The Lighthouse Report provides a fiduciary and accounting blueprint for sovereigns, auditors, and institutional investors to classify ecosystems as productive infrastructure assets, applying existing IFRS standards IAS 37 and IAS 38 to recognise Nature as infrastructure on the balance sheet.

“As His Majesty’s Terra Carta reminds us, Nature, people, and planet are at the heart of the global economy. Our COP30 IFRS Framework ensures accounting serves as the arteries of that economy — turning resilience into measurable, investable value. Investors cannot price what accounting fails to define.” said Dr Hubert Danso, Chairman and CEO of Africa Investor and Co-Chair of the SMI Africa Council, speaking from the Vatican

The report forms part of the SMI Nature Lighthouse Report Series — which includes the G20 Nature Investment Roadmap, G20 Roadmap 2.0, and Nature in the Portfolio — charting a fiduciary pathway from policy design to capital deployment, and culminating in this COP30 IFRS Framework for Nature.

Under Brazil’s COP30 Presidency, the framework aligns with global standard setters and finance tracks, including the G20, EU, BRICS, GCC, the African Union’s Nairobi Declaration, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Sustainable Finance Initiatives, the ISSB, TNFD, and the ASEAN Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance.

Download the report: Nature as Infrastructure under IFRS for Global Investability 

Together, the SMI Nature Lighthouse Report Series reflects the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s leadership under the Terra Carta — guiding sovereigns, auditors, and investors from recognition to allocation, and from valuation to assurance, for the enduring benefit of people, planet, Nature and portfolios.

G20 Nature Investment Guide Maps 5–10% Portfolio Allocation Pathway

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New York, 26 September 2025 — A landmark report launched at New York Climate Week and the 80th UN General Assembly sets out a clear allocation pathway for institutional investors to channel 5–10 per cent of portfolios into nature-based assets by 2030, classifying ecosystems as productive infrastructure that deliver resilience, revenue, and systemic risk mitigation at scale.

The G20 Nature in the Portfolio Asset Allocation Guide, developed by the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), Africa Investor (Ai), and Rebalance Earth, provides asset owners, consultants, and sovereign allocators with a practical framework to integrate nature into long-term strategy. It positions ecosystems as compliance-ready, investable infrastructure assets, underscoring that while investors can decarbonise their portfolios, they cannot afford to denature them.

From Risk to Resilience

  • $80tn systemic risk: Unchecked ecosystem degradation could impose losses equivalent to the combined GDP of the world’s largest economies by 2050, undermining sovereign creditworthiness and portfolio resilience.
  • Resilience premium: By treating ecosystems as infrastructure, investors can unlock long-duration, inflation-linked revenues while reducing systemic exposures.
  • “This is about opportunity, not obligation. A credible allocation pathway exists to capture nature’s resilience premium, alongside private markets and infrastructure. Investors can decarbonise portfolios, but they cannot denature them.”

Fiduciary Logic

The Guide anchors nature allocations in recognised international accounting and disclosure standards:

  • IAS 37 — ecosystems framed as liabilities when degraded.
  • IAS 38 — ecosystem services recognised as intangible assets that can be valued and contracted.
  • TNFD — provides a disclosure architecture for nature-related risks and dependencies.

Together, these frameworks validate nature as a compliance-ready asset class that is fiduciary-consistent, standards-aligned, and performance-competitive.

Case Studies and Africa’s GreenAlpha Framework

  • Examples from Mozambique, Kenya, and the UK show how nature-linked contracts generate infrastructure-level cash flows.
  • The Guide also highlights Africa’s GreenAlpha asset class — an institutional investor–led framework that structures Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) into a pipeline of bankable, infrastructure-style portfolios. These blended models are already delivering returns on par with private equity and infrastructure debt.
  • Together, these cases validate nature’s ability to generate both performance and resilience premiums for institutional portfolios.

Sovereign Allocation Pathway

The Guide sets out a phased roadmap for sovereign allocators:

  • 2025 → Align policy with TNFD, AfCFTA, and the AU 5% Asset Allocation Agenda.
  • 2027 → Anchor at least 2% of AUM from domestic pensions and sovereign wealth funds.
  • 2030 → Scale to 5–10% allocations, unlocking fiscal space, GDP growth, and jobs.

By classifying nature as an infrastructure-like asset on national balance sheets, governments can materially improve their sovereign credit profiles. Recognised ecosystem assets increase a state’s net worth and resilience metrics, lowering perceived risk for creditors.

This can:

  • Strengthen sovereign ratings by reducing exposure to climate-driven GDP erosion.
  • Narrow sovereign spreads and lower the cost of capital across the economy.
  • Create fiscal headroom by attracting blended finance and institutional capital at scale.

This approach reframes ecosystems from being off-balance-sheet externalities to on-balance-sheet productive assets, providing sovereigns with a direct lever to cut financing costs while mobilising long-duration investment.

Policy Anchors and Global Alignment

The Guide aligns with the COP30 Belém Roadmap, the AU 5% Asset Allocation Agenda, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), providing global legitimacy and regional ownership. Together, these frameworks create the enabling environment for investors to allocate to nature with confidence.

Call to Allocation

“This Guide demonstrates the dual wins of nature allocations. For sovereigns, bringing ecosystems onto the balance sheet strengthens credit profiles, narrows spreads, and lowers the cost of capital. For institutional investors, allocating 5–10 per cent to nature provides infrastructure-level, GreenAlpha-grade competitive returns that enhance portfolio resilience. This is not philanthropy — it is fiduciary duty, competitive advantage, and sovereign strategy.” — Dr Hubert Danso, CEO and Chairman, Africa Investor (Ai); Co-Chair, SMI Africa Council

Download the full report here:

Nature in the Portfolio: G20 Asset Allocation Guide

 

Investors launch GreenAlpha Industrial Infrastructure Asset Class at ACS2

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Addis Ababa, 10 September – Investors launched GreenAlpha, an investor-led initiative to establish Africa’s green industrial infrastructure as a globally competitive investable asset class, at the Second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2) in Addis Ababa.

Over the next decade, GreenAlpha aims to support governments structure Africa’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) into a $1 trillion pipeline of investable portfolio’s, representing about one-third of the continent’s $3 trillion in NDC investment needs.

Set out in the “From Green Growth to GreenAlpha” briefing report, the framework recasts NDCs as portfolios spanning renewable energy, hydrogen, critical minerals, digital infrastructure, green industrial cities and nature-based assets. The initiative is supported by Africa Investor (Ai), the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), the Great Green Wall of Africa Foundation (GGWoA), and the African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank (AfGIIB).

Anchored in the African Union’s (AU) 5% Asset Allocation Agenda, the AfCFTA Investment Protocol, and the AU Institutional Investor–Public Partnership (IIPP) model, The GreenAlpha seeks to cut Africa’s cost of capital by 300–500 basis points while offering domestic and global investors 14–22% returns, supported by Basel- and OECD-compliant risk-sharing instruments.

The launch also included a formal “Call to Allocation”, inviting additional sovereigns, institutional investors, philanthropies, development partners and investment consultants to join the platform.

Dr Hubert Danso, Chairman of Africa Investor, said:

“GreenAlpha is how Africa will make development investable, by aligning its $1tn NDCs-aligned pipeline with $300tn in domestic and global institutional capital, increasing access for African manufactured green technologies to the $10tn global green industrial economy.”

Supporters argue that, once scaled, GreenAlpha could within a decade make Africa a multi-trillion-dollar green industrial investment engine, scaling the continent’s industrialisation while contributing to global decarbonisation, resilience and growth — a step seen as critical to achieving global climate goals.

Read the ‘Green Growth to GreenAlpha’ briefing report.

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Blended finance limits, 4 ways to unlock billions for Africa water

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Blended finance is being wrongly treated as a cure-all for the water investment gap in Africa, despite lacking the capacity to deliver on the continent’s infrastructure needs.

This was the stark reality check provided by Hubert Danso, Chairman and CEO of Africa Investor Group, at the ongoing AU–Africa Water Investment Programme (AU-AIP) Water Summit 2025 in Cape Town.

“I love the enthusiasm around blended finance, but blended finance was designed decades ago… and if the truth be told, blended finance has not really got the depth and the capacity to accomplish any of our goals,” said Danso.

“If you bring all of the blended finance first loss capacity together for Africa as well as all emerging markets, less than 10% of what we actually need is available. So the question should be, ‘how do we fix the 90% gap that blended finance has not’?”

He was speaking during a panel discussion themed Investors Speak: What will it take to finance Africa’s water projects?

Finance focus needs to change

Danso warned that Africa’s development community was “spending 90% of our time trying to solve 10% of the problem.”

He argued that blended finance could even raise the cost of capital by creating a perception of loss before projects were considered.

“As I say to my colleagues, we spend 90% of our time trying to solve 10% of the problem, and less than 10% of our time working with people who can solve 90% of the problem.
“So blended finance, just so that we understand, I know that a lot of colleagues are leaning on blended finance because you don’t really have much else.”
“Blended finance… whilst it’s got some transactions done and we can throw some good names around… [but] if not sold properly, contributes to increasing the cost of capital, because it gives the perception that geographies that need blended finance are going to have a loss even before we’ve talked about the transaction… we’re explaining who’s going to take on board the loss.”

Instead, he urged a shift to “making development investable” and outlined four proposals to unlock more than $10 billion annually from the $300 trillion in global institutional capital.

Four ways to access finance for water sector in Africa

  1. Legally classifying water ecosystems – from watershed protection to natural filtration – as national infrastructure assets eligible for regulated returns.
  2. Replacing public-private partnerships with “institutional investor public-partnerships” to match long-term capital with long-term assets.
  3. Securitising Africa’s $6 trillion in natural capital to unlock $900bn, including $18bn a year until 2050.
  4. Creating scalable, tradable financial products such as water exchange-traded funds, nature-linked bonds and resilience funds linked to ESG capital taxonomies.

Making water development a bankable investment in Africa

“We don’t have to reinvent any wheel. We just have to perhaps let the development finance world understand that if they can’t finance the scope of the need, they should probably never invest in that… the alignment is there, and then we can decide the extent to which our development interests are balanced,” said Danso.

He said that one of the key philosophies “that we need to think about is, instead of trying to make investment developmental, we should be trying to make development investable to the point where it can unlock the social as well as economic dividends on an aligned basis.”

Danso said his organisation tends to invest in financial instruments, funds and more strategic platforms.

“So we believe that water is very aligned with that. It’s happening around the world… private capital are already going into well defined and regulated structures, and private capital is already doing it.”
Source: ESI Africa

Africa investor backs G20 drive to fix Africa’s cost of capital

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Johannesburg, 6 August 2025 – Africa Investor (Ai) today announced its support for South Africa’s G20 Presidency in tackling one of the most pressing structural barriers to the continent’s economic transformation: Africa’s disproportionately high cost of capital.
Despite the continent’s vast industrial and green growth potential, African economies continue to pay unjustifiably high capital premiums. This systemic mispricing has blocked trillions of dollars in long-term institutional investment from flowing into Africa’s green industrial infrastructure — now recognised as a globally competitive and scalable investable asset class.
“Fixing Africa’s cost of capital is not just an African issue — it is a global investment imperative. Repricing risk, scaling private investment, and driving industrial growth are essential to mobilise the long-duration capital required to deliver Africa’s transformation and the world’s climate goals.” said Dr Hubert Danso, Chairman of Africa Investor
Ai confirmed it is working alongside partners including ONE, Africa Practice, Standard Bank, and leading global institutional investor coalitions, to call for urgent action at the G20, African Union, and COP30 platforms. The coalition is pressing for:
  • Repricing of sovereign and infrastructure risk to correct systemic distortions;
  • Unlocking long-term private capital at an institutional scale;
  • Accelerating Africa’s green industrial value chains in line with national priorities and global climate commitments.
For institutional investors, consultants, policymakers, and development partners, the message is clear: it is time to make development investable. That requires disciplined, risk-adjusted capital flows into productive real-economy assets that generate jobs, growth, and resilience.
Ai underscored the role of Institutional Investor–Public Partnerships (IIPPs) and the GEMs3.0 platform as critical innovations to reprice Africa’s risk and unlock its full investment potential at scale.
“Governments are overpaying and universal owners are underachieving,” Dr Danso concluded. “The G20 process provides the platform to fix both.”

Innovative frameworks proposed to scale investments in emerging markets and developing economies

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At a recent institutional investor meeting during the Financing for Development Summit (FfD4) in Seville, Spain, Dr. Hubert Danso, chairman and CEO of Africa Investor (Ai), urged investors to move beyond legacy mandates toward future-fit fiduciary models through collaborative efforts and institutional investor partnerships.

Danso spotlighted three investment paradigms being piloted across Africa and the Global South that are reshaping investor incentives and accelerating sustainable capital flows into emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). According to Danso, these are green industrial cities; natural capital investing; and GEMs3.0, an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled investment ecosystem.

“These multi-stakeholder sandboxes are the system,” said Danso. “Green industrial cities, natural capital investing and GEMs3.0 are not isolated pilots — they are interoperable platforms redefining how we govern, invest and scale long-term regenerative returns through institutional investor public partnerships.”

Aligned with national and regional green industrialization strategies, green industrial cities and economic ones are anchored in ESG-aligned value chains, green infrastructure and bankable offtakes for value-added products. According to Danso, the cities themselves are structured as investable real assets akin to green industrial REITs, positioning Africa’s green industrial infrastructure as a globally competitive investable asset class, and scaling its share of the $10 trillion global green industrial economy.

In addition, referencing the G20 Natural Capital Investment Roadmap that was launched at London Climate Action Week, Danso urged investors to treat nature as a strategic public asset class. He believes that by integrating a number of resources and tools, institutional investors can make nature-linked investment solutions more mainstream.

Danso also referenced the GEMs3.0 Institutional Investor User Survey Report, which was based on responses from select Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) members managing more than $6 trillion in assets. The survey was developed to inform the foundation of the GEMs3.0 platform initiative to align institutional capital with just regenerative transitions. GEMs3.0 is a first-of-its-kind AI-enabled investment ecosystem designed to correct benchmark and ratings distortions, deliver real-time, transition-relevant insights, and empower asset owners to allocate capital in mandate-aligned, systemically regenerative ways. GEMs3.0 aims to accelerate just transitions across EMDEs, delivering benefits for people, planet, nature, and portfolios.

“Let’s be the market,” urged Danso. “As universal owners stewarding over $300 trillion in assets, we are not passengers in this transition — we are its architects. Let us use the Earth for All report and the FfD4 process to co-create and execute scalable, inclusive investment blueprints for the regenerative global economy we need.”

Institutional Investors Champion Sandboxes at FfD4 to Scale Investment in EMDEs

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Seville, Spain – July 2, 2025 – At a high-level institutional investor meeting during the Financing for Development Summit (FfD4) in Seville, Dr Hubert Danso, Chairman and CEO of Africa Investor (Ai), spoke at the flagship event, “Incentives for Institutional Investors to Pursue Sustainable and Equitable Investments in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs). 

Speaking on the theme, “Rewiring Investment Ecosystems for a Regenerative Global Economy,” Dr Danso urged investors to move beyond legacy mandates and co-create future-fit fiduciary models through collaborative sandboxes and Institutional Investor–Public Partnerships (IIPPs).

“We’re not just here to talk about investing in the future — we’re here to rewire the investment system itself,” said Dr Danso, referencing the Earth for All report he co-authored, Investing to Reconnect Financial Value with People, Nature, and the Real Economy.

Dr Danso spotlighted three transformative investment paradigms currently being piloted across Africa and the Global South that are reshaping investor incentives and accelerating sustainable capital flows into EMDEs:

1. Green Industrial Cities: Dr Danso highlighted Africa’s emerging Green Industrial Cities and Economic Zones, aligned with national and regional green industrialisation strategies such as the African Union’s Nairobi Declaration – Africa’s Green Investment Deal.

These hubs are anchored in ESG-aligned value chains, green infrastructure, and bankable offtakes for value-added products. The cities themselves are structured as investable real assets — akin to green industrial REITs — positioning Africa’s green industrial infrastructure as a globally competitive investable asset class, and scaling its share of the $10 trillion global green industrial economy.

2. Natural Capital Investing: Referencing the G20 Natural Capital Investment Roadmap, launched at London Climate Action Week and now featured at FfD4, Dr Danso called on investors to treat nature as a productive, strategic public asset class.

By integrating IAS 37/38-compliant accounting standards, AI-enabled ecosystem valuation, and sovereign balance sheet tools, institutional investors can mainstream nature-linked investment solutions, transforming them from the exception to the expectation.

3. GEMs3.0 – AI-Enabled Investment Ecosystem: Unveiled at FfD4, the GEMs3.0 Institutional Investor User Survey Report— based on responses from select Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) members managing over $6 trillion in assets — was co-developed with SMI and supported by EY, informing the foundation of the GEMs3.0 platform initiative to align institutional capital with just regenerative transitions.

GEMs3.0 is the world’s first AI-enabled investment ecosystem designed to:

  • Correct benchmark and ratings distortions.
  • Deliver real-time, transition-relevant insights.
  • Empower asset owners to allocate capital in mandate-aligned, systemically regenerative ways.

GEMs3.0 is purpose-built to accelerate just transitions across EMDEs — delivering benefits for people, planet, nature, and portfolios.

“These multi-stakeholder sandboxes are the system,” Dr Danso concluded. “Green Industrial Cities, Natural Capital Investing, and GEMs3.0 are not isolated pilots — they are interoperable platforms redefining how we govern, invest, and scale long-term regenerative returns through Institutional Investor–Public Partnerships.”

“Let’s be the market,” Dr. Danso urged. “As universal owners stewarding over $300 trillion in assets, we are not passengers in this transition — we are its architects. It is time to move beyond ‘Theory of Change’ and ‘Change the Theory’. Let us use the Earth for All report and the FfD4 process to co-create and execute scalable, inclusive investment blueprints for the regenerative global economy we need.”

ENDS

Africa Investor Launches G20 Nature Investment Roadmap 2.0 and GEMs 3.0 Institutional Investor Survey at LCAW

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London, 21 June 2025 – In support of the historic South African G20 Presidency, Africa investor (Ai) launched two flagship publications during London Climate Action Week (LCAW), calling for ambitious reforms in global climate finance and nature-based investing.

The G20 Nature Investment Roadmap 2.0, developed by Africa investor in collaboration with the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Investable Asset Classes Working Group, urges G20 leaders to adopt a strategic shift that recognizes natural capital as a productive, tangible public asset. The roadmap offers a practical framework for integrating ecosystem services into national accounts, sovereign balance sheets, and public investment strategies, warning that failure to protect nature and ecosystem services could result in an $80 trillion loss to the global economy over the next 25 years.

Read the G20 Nature Investment Roadmap 2.0

In parallel, Africa investor released the GEMs 3.0 Institutional Investor User Survey, developed with support from EY, which captures insights from select SMI institutional members managing over $6 trillion in assets. The survey highlights how leading investors are harnessing AI and digital platforms to unlock transition finance and low-carbon investment opportunities in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). The findings affirm that AI-driven asset allocation is rapidly emerging as a transformative enabler for mobilizing long-term institutional capital at scale.

Read the GEMs 3.0 Survey

“These seminal Institutional Investor–Public Partnership initiatives for Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs)—announced at London Climate Week—are critical milestones on the road to COP30 in Brazil, Africa’s G20 in South Africa, and next year’s G7 in France,” said Dr. Hubert Danso, CEO and Chairman of Africa investor and Co-Chair of the SMI Africa Council. Expressing gratitude to the SMI, ecosystem collaborators, and institutional investment leaders for advancing this important work, Dr. Danso emphasized: “Let’s be the market—and move beyond ‘Theory of Change’ and ‘Change the Theory.'”

Together, these reports reinforce Africa investor’s innovative leadership in delivering investable, scalable frameworks that empower institutional investor–public partnerships, accelerate climate action, protect nature, and drive green industrialisation in Africa and globally — proving that what’s good for Africa and the planet can also generate risk-adjusted, mandate-aligned, and resilient portfolios for investors worldwide.

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