Africa has big ambitions and not nearly enough long-term money to back them. Africa’s corporate debt markets remain far too small for the continent’s size, according to the OECD’s Africa Capital Markets Report 2026, released on Friday. Outstanding market-based debt was just $211 billion at the end of 2025.
A Market in Reverse
The corporate bond market is worth about $35 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that is 44 percent below its 2015 peak, a drop the OECD blamed mostly on weaker activity in South Africa.
Africa makes up roughly 2.7 percent of global GDP but only 0.3 percent of global corporate debt, according to BusinessDay’s reading of the report. Fewer than 20 corporate bonds were issued across the whole continent in 2025, and 17 of them came from financial companies.
Concentrated in a Handful of Countries
Six countries hold 80 percent of outstanding corporate debt: Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria and South Africa. Most other economies have little to work with.
Currency adds another problem. Only 17 percent of corporate debt issued in 2025 was in local currency. Firms that borrow in dollars or euros face higher bills whenever their own currency weakens, and a single swing can wreck a business plan.
Why It Matters Now
The timing is awkward. Aid from OECD donor countries to sub-Saharan Africa fell by more than a quarter in 2025, so governments and businesses need homegrown sources of long-term finance more than ever.
The OECD says the barriers in countries without bond markets are mainly economic and institutional, not technical. Deeper pension funds, solid regulation, the rule of law and stable exchange rates all help bond markets grow. It wants governments to take a broad, whole-of-government approach.
For a young entrepreneur in Lagos, Nairobi or Accra, the point is simple. Firms that can borrow for the long term can build factories and hire people, and that depends on markets that work.
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