In partnership with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, GSG Impact has developed a Regional Policy Toolkit for Africa to strengthen impact economies and foster enabling policy environments across the continent.

Africa faces an annual SDG financing gap of $1.3tn – equivalent to 42% of the continent’s GDP. Traditional aid and public revenues cannot close this gap. Yet more than $1.57tn in global impact capital is actively seeking destinations that generate both financial returns and measurable social or environmental outcomes. The primary barriers preventing that capital from reaching African markets relate to the absence of policy and regulatory infrastructure, not investor appetite.

This toolkit analyses how nine African governments, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia, can use 14 policy tools across three government roles to build the infrastructure of an impact economy. The impact economy, as defined by GSG Impact, is an economic system in which measurable social and environmental outcomes sit at the core of every investment, business, and government decision, ultimately creating resilient economic growth in an inclusive and environmentally responsible manner. 

The findings are grounded in country-level evidence and shaped by one overarching observation: the tools are mostly known, the capital exists and the precedents are established. What varies is the institutional capacity and policy coordination needed to develop an impact economy.