Africa-India Blueprint for Growth launched on the sidelines of the AU Summit

An article authored by the Director of the NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies Amit Jain has been published in a landmark policy recommendation report jointly produced by the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD and the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). In his piece the Centre Director makes a case for collaboration between India and Africa to develop a deep and liquid domestic capital market in the continent. He was among a group of 32 experts who contributed to the report. Click here to read his article.  The Africa-India Blueprint for Growth  was launched at the Indian embassy in Addis Ababa on 9 February 2026. It came on the sidelines of the 39^th African Union Summit, which he also attended.

‘India can be viewed as a case study for Africa as it attempts to mobilise more domestic resources and reduce its dependence on external sources for capital,’ Amit states in his article. Speaking at a panel discussion to mark the report launch Amit Jain said “Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) pulled out almost US$20 billion from the Indian stock market last year (2025). Yet it made no difference to India as domestic retail investors remained firmly bullish. Because India has a deep and vibrant domestic capital market it does not have to rely on external sources to finance its development needs”. Noting that almost 10% of Indian households invest in securities Amit said, “The wider the participation of citizens in the capital market, the less the need for a state to rely on foreign borrowing.”

‘There are 29 stock exchanges on the continent have a total market capitalisation of US$1.6 trillion,’ the Centre Director notes in his article. ‘Compare that with the Indian stock market capitalisation of US$5.5 trillion.’

“Except for South Africa, the size of whose capital market is over US$1 trillion, stock exchanges in the rest of the continent are very small,” he said. “Developing capital markets requires broad set of policy measures. It covers everything from pooling savings to widening the tax net to listing companies. This will take time. But using digital tools and investor education Africa can shorten the duration,” he said.

Bombay Stock Exchange building. By BSEINDIA - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Centre Director identified the need for setting up a strong regulatory authority as the first step towards creating well-functioning capital market. “The governance standards set by the Securities and Exchange Board of India may not be a gold standard, but it is arguably ‘fit-for-purpose’ as far as Africa is concerned.” The second step, he noted, was the creation of a dual stock exchange – a main board with stricter listing requirements and a parallel one with lighter listing requirement. The third, he said was the creation of a market index that can help ‘price discovery’. And the fourth and final requirement would be the ‘need for financial literacy’ which, he said,  can be aided through an ‘investor guide’.

The Africa-India Blueprint for Growth is edited by Pamla Gopaul, Head of the Africa Policy Bridge Tank at AUDA NEPAD and Dr Veda Vaidyanathan, Fellow at CSEP.