Investing in Africa’s Future, One Fund at a Time
The Study
Domiciliation is the legal address of a fund, and with it travel the audit fees, legal fees, custodial fees, and the financial-services jobs that grow around them. Today six in ten Africa-focused vehicles are housed offshore. The study below maps the jurisdictions changing that.
A study by the Mastercard Foundation, led by MEDA with experts from Momentus Global, Stafford Law, and Samawati Capital, exploring what it would take for Africa to host more investment vehicles on its own soil.
The Top Four
Of the world’s four leading destinations for Africa-focused funds, only one is in Africa.
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Delaware together hold 41% of the vehicles raising and deploying capital on Africa’s growth thesis. The capital still reaches Africa; the service economy around the fund does not.
The Instrument
The Fund Domiciliation Maturity Diagnostic Tool (FDMDT) scores any jurisdiction on sixteen parameters across four pillars that drive where funds choose to register. It is built to be reused: a practical instrument the wider ecosystem can adopt to benchmark readiness and target reform.
The Competitive Map
Each market below is scored on the FDMDT. Select a jurisdiction to see where it stands.
The Real Prize
Most domestic regulators only let pension funds back locally domiciled vehicles. No African home for a fund means no pathway from African pension capital to African MSMEs. The proof of concept already exists.
What This Unlocks
Policy reform brings funds home. What turns that into jobs and local value is the ecosystem and the people who run it.
Enabling policy, regulation and incentives attract investment vehicles to African jurisdictions.
Legal, fund administration, custody, compliance, audit and advisory services are needed to operate funds locally.
Skilled professionals across these functions enable high-quality, efficient and compliant operations.
Fees, profits and institutional spend stay in-country, building tax revenue, resilience and career pathways for African talent.
Domiciliation determines where funds are registered. Workforce readiness determines where value and jobs actually stay.
Read the study
It takes two to five years for a new domicile to earn international trust. The jurisdictions that move first will define the next decade of African-led investing.
Commissioned by the Mastercard Foundation in partnership with MEDA
Sources: Oryx Impact (2023); African Union Commission / OECD (2023); Collaborative for Frontier Finance; Kenya Retirement Benefits Authority; AVCA (2022); Jersey Finance (2020). The study does not publish a single figure for capital “lost” to offshore domiciles. The defensible framing is the share of vehicles housed abroad and the fund-administration, legal, and audit fees that follow them, not deployed capital.
Further Reading
