In a powerful and transformational keynote address at the Africa -Caribbean Infrastructure Forum, Rufus N. Darkortey, Executive Director at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), called on countries of the Global South to reimagine economic growth and infrastructure development through bold and innovative homegrown solutions. These, he emphasized, must be anchored in domestic resource mobilization and a strong resilient domestic private sector to fast-track their transition from low to middle-income status.
This high-level forum was held on the margins of the 2025 World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 2025. It was co-hosted by SmartDev and the Africa Canada Trade and Investment Venture (ACTIV). The Forum brought together senior policymakers, development finance leaders, and private sector actors, including Haiti’s Minister of Finance Alfred Fils Metellus, to chart a new agenda for infrastructure financing and inclusive growth.
Darkortey called for a new development compact where Africa and the Caribbean must embrace a new economic growth and infrastructure development model built on resilience, internal capacity, economic sovereignty, and homegrown solutions, while leveraging the opportunities of the current international development model.
He believes that sustainable growth and development begins and ends with countries building robust domestic economies that are driven by domestic resource mobilization and stronger domestic private sector development as the two key foundational drivers of accelerated infrastructure development and economic growth across Africa and the Caribbean. He therefore advocates for expanding fiscal space, modernizing public financial management, and strengthening domestic private sector actors, particularly SMEs, which accounts for over 90% of businesses in Africa and a significant share across the Global South.
He believes that by boosting domestic revenue and supporting local enterprises, countries can unlock the internal capital needed to drive sustainable development across all sectors of the economy, such as healthcare, education, agriculture, and infrastructure, while also advancing innovation and improving sovereign debt sustainability. This transformational approach is central to his economic philosophy in transforming low-income countries into middle and high-income countries to break the cycle of poverty and underdevelopment, while promoting empowerment for youth, women, and fragile communities.
While acknowledging and appreciating the global development partners, Darkortey emphasized that the next chapter of development must be driven by African and Caribbean resources that are mobilized domestically, while leveraging the successes of the current international system. “This is not a rejection of international cooperation,” he said, “but a call to evolve the current development financing model.”
Africa and the Caribbean have made strides, but infrastructure gaps remain stark. Africa added over 1.9 million kilometers of roads since 1995, but only 30% are paved. The Caribbean’s rate is 52%, both far behind East Asia’s 92%.
Electricity access remains limited with just 58% in Africa and 82% in the Caribbean, compared to the near-universal access in Europe and Asia. The World Bank notes that every 1% increase in paved roads leads to a 0.3% GDP rise, underscoring the cost of inadequate infrastructure in these regions.
On development financing, Africa invests 3.1% of GDP in infrastructure, with only 12% from the private sector. The Caribbean spends just 2.5% of its GDP, with 5% private financing involvement. Asia, by contrast, invests 8% and secures 42% private funding.
Darkortey identified three key reasons for this underdevelopment. First, the domestic private sectors are too weak in these underdeveloped regions. Only 20% of African and 30% of Caribbean businesses operate formally, thus locking them out of access to financing, taxation, and productivity systems. Second, core sectors are dominated by foreign firms. In Africa, 80% of the mining sector is foreign-owned. In the Caribbean, tourism which constitutes up to 30% of GDP is over 50% foreign-owned, with about 60% of revenues flowing out of the region. Third, revenue collection low. Africa’s tax-to-GDP ratio is just 16.5%, and the Caribbean’s is 18.3%, compared to 22.7% in Latin America and 35% in OECD countries. Combined with $88 billion in annual revenue loss due to illicit financial flows from Africa and low intra-regional trade, which is 18% in Africa vs. 60% in Europe. These structural gaps perpetuate aid dependency and economic fragility and thus hindering access to financing to fund infrastructure in these regions.
Darkortey indicated that public-private partnership (PPP) offers enormous opportunities for financing development in Africa and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, PPP is yet to be very successful in these regions because the domestic private sector is very weak comprising weak and informal SMEs, while structural barriers are preventing international private sector into these countries. On the public financing side, government domestic revenue collection is very weak and low. Therefore, PPP financing of development is weak in both regions.
Given the heavy debt sustainability burden of most countries in Africa and the Caribbean resulting from low domestic revenue and weak private sector, Darkortey proposed public-private partnership (PPP) models to continue to crowd in development financing in these low-income regions. These models include output-based aid, which pays only after results are delivered; build-operate-transfer arrangements in which private firms develop and operate infrastructure before transferring ownership to the state; blended finance mechanisms, which combine public and private capital; availability payment models, where governments pay based on performance rather than usage; and special economic zones that serve as industrial hubs with targeted incentives. He also outlined sovereign-guaranteed gradual repayment schemes that allow SMEs to repay over time from profits. “These are not borrowed blueprints, they are tools already working across the globe,” he said.
He also offered strategic recommendations for action, including the passing of legislations to support sovereign wealth funds and infrastructure bonds for domestic capital mobilization; the establishment of national PPP incubators with focus on SMEs with performance-based equity structures; digitizing tax systems using mobile platforms, following the example of Kenya’s M-Pesa levy; building agro-export corridors between regions using blended finance; digitizing governance and trade, greening economies through climate-resilient infrastructure, deepening regional value chains, and launching diaspora bond platforms to be managed by trusted multilateral institutions like the AfDB and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB); and promoting and scaling context-appropriate PPP models for low-income countries.
He said unless we change the current development financing model, Africa and the Caribbean could remain trapped in low-income status for another 100 years. But with smart, courageous reforms and a renewed focus on homegrown solutions, we can accelerate that transformation in just 30 to 50 years just as the Asian Tigers did. “We can achieve this not through dependency, but through domestic resource mobilization, and the development of strong domestic private sector.
The Forum convened a distinguished roster of participants and expert panelists, reflecting growing consensus that Africa and the Caribbean must lead with their own voices, resources, and institutions. These included Caribbean Development Bank Vice President Dr. Isaac Solomon; Zambia’s Ambassador to the United States Dr. Chibamba Kanyama; Abebe Abebayehu Chekol, Deputy Director of Communications and Advocacy at the Gates Foundation; Dr. Emmanuel Munyenneh, Advisor to the Executive Director for Africa at the World Bank Group; Benjamin Gyepi-Garbrah II, Managing Director of SATIG LLC; Jyoti Bisbey, Executive Member of the World Association of PPP Units and Professionals (WAPPP); Vladimir LaBorde, Managing Director of the Haiti Business Accelerator; and Dr. Akolisa (Ako) Ufodike, Ph.D., FCPA, Deputy Minister of Trade, Immigration, and Multiculturalism for the Government of Alberta, Canada. The panel was moderated by Dr. Carline Noailles, Ph.D., MBA, and offered deep insights into unlocking private capital and scaling Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). Collectively, the group painted a rich picture of what is possible when public policy and private enterprise align to pursue shared goals.
Darkortey called on countries within Africa and the Caribbean to learn from the successful development models from Vietnam, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and the Dominican Republic to understand that transformation is possible. Vietnam now exports $370 billion annually. Bangladesh built a $42 billion garment industry and lifted 25 million people from poverty. Ethiopia increased exports about six times and expanded road coverage from 8% to 65%. The Dominican Republic lifted GDP per capita from $1,500 to over $11,000. “Let this century be remembered not for aid dependency,” he concluded, “but for domestic capital mobilization, SME-driven innovation, and sovereign economic and infrastructure development.”
As Executive Director at the African Development Bank, representing The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan, he highlighted AfDB funded projects like the Desert to Power project, aiming to provide renewable energy to 250 million people in the Sahel and the Bank’s support for Ethiopia’s transformation into a net wheat exporter as financing strategies that are driving Africa’s transformation and development.
