Guinea to Zambia: Crowding Commercial Capital into Africa's Least Invested Markets

Of the world’s 44 UN Least Developed Countries (LDCs), 32 are in Africa. Since 1971, only 3 African nations have graduated from the UN LDC list. Meeting the UN’s target of 15 graduations by 2031 demands urgent capital mobilization that aid alone cannot deliver. This session presents a live case study of how SDC and TLG Capital have catalyzed over $50 million in commercial investment into SMEs across African LDCs and conflict-affected markets in under 12 months, leveraging blended finance, private credit, and bank-layered lending to turn perceived risk into commercial opportunity. Speakers will examine what it takes to actually crowd institutional investors into markets most consider “un-investable.”