The Private Sector Development (PSD) Africa Capital Markets has sealed a partnership with the Pension Fund Operators” Association of Nigeria (PenOp) to strengthen economic sustainability through mobilising long-term capital for private sector financing in Nigeria.
The conference with the theme: “Mobilising Patient Capital Via Innovative Financing Structures For Sustainable Development ” in Lagos.
For PSD, Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa, has displayed resilience and substantial growth despite the negative impact posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and macroeconomic constraints.
However, Nigeria sustaining its growth momentum and promoting economic development requires innovative financing solutions and the attraction of climate-smart and private investments.
The event brings together influential stakeholders across the financial sector of the economy to deliberate the potential of domestic capital markets in mobilising long-term capital for sustainable financing in the country.
In an interview with the Director, Capital Markets – FSD Africa, Dr. Evans Osano, at the backside of the programme, said that they are in Nigeria to collaborate with their partner to see economic opportunities that can help the country overcome its immediate climate challenges.
He said there are many investments in the financial sector of the economy such as, Banking industry, Capital market, Pension industry, Insurance, Security Exchange Commission (SEC), and others to address the country’s climate change challenges for better economic growth and to ensure that the economic situation is improved.
Speaking also at the conference, the Chief Executive Officer, (PenOp)Oguche Agudah, said Nigeria has the world’s largest number of poor people and out-of-school children.
Agudah also identified the lack of access to energy as one of the Nigerian’s challenges that need to be addressed.
According to him, we have gotten a high level of rural-urban migration. Most recently, where young Nigerians go out of the country to greener pastures in search of greater economic opportunity.
He said these are points to growing problems that Nigerians have to deal with at some point. It might not affect us directly, but it’s only a matter of time before it gets to us, whether it’s the number of unemployed people, the lack of access to quality healthcare or education, or dealing with potential flooding or the housing deficit.
Agudah observed that challenges are huge, the problems are enormous, but so are the potential opportunities.
However, what we need to do is to look at these challenges differently and use the capital to manage them innovatively.
He maintained that there is a need to deploy in a manner that seeks to solve some of these challenges and for that capital to be deployed adequately in a way that compensates the capital providers for their risk, compensates them for their time, and also compensates the people who manage those funds. In this way, they will be incentivized to do it again and again and again.
