What does Invest Africa do?
Invest Africa is a leading business and investment platform with over 70 years’ experience promoting trade and investment on the continent. As the trusted entry point into Africa, we connect and support businesses and investors through our membership network, dynamic events programme and consult service. Our vision is to play a central and influential role in Africa’s socio-economic growth by guiding sustainable capital towards high impact opportunities on the continent.
Who can become a member of Invest Africa?
Invest Africa membership is open to businesses, investors, financiers, and advisors seeking to build or expand their commercial activity across the African continent. Whether you are looking to broaden your network, start a business, enter a new market, or expand existing multinational operations, membership offers a tailored approach to meeting your business development objectives.
Members typically include multinational corporates planning market entry or expansion into Africa, investors and financiers evaluating opportunities across African markets, and professional advisors and businesses that want access to a pan-African trade and investment network.
What services does Invest Africa provide?
Invest Africa is a business and investment platform that supports and connects companies and investors operating across the African continent through three core services: membership, a dynamic events programme, and its consulting arm, IA Consult.
Membership gives businesses, investors, and advisors access to a pan-African trade and investment network, offering high-level connectivity with key stakeholders, facilitated introductions, brand profiling and thought leadership, soft-landing support for new markets, and regular market insights.
The events programme connects members and partners through a global calendar of engagements, anchored by the annual flagship conference, The Africa Debate.
IA Consult provides advisory services including research and market intelligence, capital advisory and market access, and thought leadership and public affairs support — helping corporates and institutions plan market entry, expansion, and investment strategy across Africa.
What is The Africa Debate?
The Africa Debate is Invest Africa’s premier conference, bringing together the world’s most influential leaders to discuss and debate the continent’s trade and investment landscape, as well as its leadership position on the international stage.
For more than ten years in London, The Africa Debate has been a cornerstone event for Africa-focused investors and businesses, consistently attracting over 900 delegates at each edition. 2024 marked a significant milestone with the successful expansion of The Africa Debate into the UAE, reinforcing Invest Africa’s global reach and its role in connecting international investors with Africa’s most dynamic markets.
These flagship gatherings continue to offer unparalleled networking opportunities and deep insights into the latest trends and developments shaping Africa’s economic future.
What are the benefits of joining a business and investment platform focused on Africa?
Invest Africa is a pan-African trade and investment network that helps members broaden their network, start a business, enter a new market or expand multinational activities across the continent — through a tailored approach built around four areas:
Community — access to a pan-African trade and investment network, high-level connectivity, and facilitated introductions to key stakeholders across African and international markets.
Access — a global events programme, including the annual flagship event The Africa Debate, C-suite private round tables, investor missions, and speaking and event-hosting opportunities.
Expertise — the experience of the Invest Africa team to support business development, soft-landing into new markets, and public affairs.
Visibility — brand profiling and exposure as a thought leader, alongside regular market insights.
Members consistently point to the quality of the network. As Juliet Ehimuan, Director, West Africa at Google, puts it: "Invest Africa provides great opportunities to meet like-minded people who are interested in development across Africa in business as well as in government."
What advisory and consulting services does Invest Africa Consult offer?
Invest Africa Consult is an independent, research-led advisory service supporting governments, investors and businesses across Africa and key international markets in the UK, UAE and U.S. It works in both directions — helping companies enter and grow across African markets, and helping African governments and institutions attract international investment. It combines on-the-ground research, investor insight and public affairs expertise to mobilise capital, unlock market access, and strengthen trade and investment flows.
Services fall into three areas:
Research and Market Intelligence — proprietary country and sector analysis, investment mapping and investor sentiment research. Delivered work includes a UK–Africa Trade & Investment Whitepaper commissioned by Standard Chartered, sectoral strategy for Arup's Africa 2030 roadmap, critical minerals supply chain research with PwC and the FCDO, and strategy benchmarking for the African Legal Support Facility alongside PwC Luxembourg.
Capital Advisory and Market Access — advisory support for capital raising, investor engagement and stakeholder alignment. Delivered work includes strategic partnership support to Absa International, participation in the UK Government's Growth Gateway consortium, a Rwanda green investment pitch session with the UK Government and the Rwanda Development Board, and investor and trade missions across seven African markets.
Thought Leadership and Public Affairs — amplifying insight through global events, research launches and media engagement. Delivered work includes a Climate Finance Roundtable at the AfDB Annual Meetings, the Ethiopia Investment Promotion Campaign, the Togo Investment Summit, and strategic communications for Crown Agents Bank and CRDB Tanzania.
Recent advisory mandates include investor sentiment reports on Mauritius and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, work supporting UK–Rwanda agri-food trade, strategic public affairs engagement in Washington, D.C., and research on women in critical mineral supply chains.
Invest Africa Consult brings 70+ years of Africa-focused expertise, a network of 400+ member companies, on-the-ground presence in Africa, the UK, UAE and US, and high-level engagement with ministers, regulators and heads of state.
What are the advantages of participating in conferences about Africa's trade and investment landscape?
Attending or sponsoring a conference on Africa's trade and investment landscape gives you:
Direct access to decision-makers — face-to-face contact with ministers, financiers, corporates, and senior political leaders you'd otherwise struggle to reach. The Africa Debate has drawn on-record participation from figures including the Heads of State of Ghana, Kenya, Zambia and Togo, alongside government ministers, C-suite leaders of multinationals, private equity firms, institutional investors, development finance institutions and entrepreneurs.
Market intelligence, fast — a compressed way to absorb current thinking on specific markets, sectors, and deal flow, rather than piecing it together from scattered sources.
Deal origination and partnerships — a concentrated environment for finding co-investors, local partners, and advisors when you're evaluating or entering a market.
Credibility and visibility — for sponsors and speakers, association with a credible, established platform signals seriousness to the market and generates third-party coverage.
A shortcut into a trusted network — the relationships built at a strong event tend to outlast the event itself, giving ongoing access to expertise and introductions.
Why invest in Africa?
Africa holds structural leverage across the systems driving global economic growth, making it an increasingly strategic destination for long-term investment. Four factors stand out: the continent's critical minerals powering the global energy transition, its energy capacity shaping future supply and security, the world's fastest-growing workforce and consumer market, and a continent-scale market, delivered through the African Continental Free Trade Area, unlocking new trade and production dynamics.
These advantages are becoming more significant as global conditions shift. Trade is fragmenting, capital is becoming more selective, and supply chains are being redrawn across energy, infrastructure, technology, mining, agriculture, and beyond. In this environment, Africa is no longer simply being positioned within the global economy. It is actively defining how, and with whom, it engages. The central question for investors is no longer what the world needs from Africa, but who gets access, and on what terms.
Realising these opportunities requires local knowledge, trusted networks, and the right partners on the ground. Invest Africa supports businesses and investors in navigating market entry and capital deployment across the continent through its membership network, events programme, and consulting service, IA Consult.
