Lionel Zinsou, Founder and Managing Partner of SouthBridge and former Prime Minister of Benin talks to COVID-19 Africa Watch about opportunities for private sector growth and investment post-COVID-19.

Key Takeaways

The following are a few of the main takeaways from COVID-19 Africa Watch’s conversation with Lionel Zinsou, Founder and Managing Partner of SouthBridge and former Prime Minister of Benin:

• COVID-19 has posed a major challenge to the private sector. Local businesses could use more government support, and countries have been stretched in terms of implementing social protection programs for the most vulnerable given limited resources and relatively weak banking systems.
• In many countries, the private sector has been at the forefront of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, in Nigeria and South Africa, the private sector has played a major role in successfully furnishing hospitals with the equipment needed to treat patients of COVID-19.
• To accelerate private-sector-led growth, African governments still have room for improvement in terms of enforcement of rule of law, strength of the judiciary system, and banking sector modernization. Governments also need to improve the fiscal environment and local tax frameworks so as to encourage the expansion of the formal sector.
• Post COVID-19, many areas should continue to present good investment opportunities, for example in infrastructure, consumer goods, and in the innovative sectors which have seen an upsurge during the pandemic such as IT and FinTech.
• Recreating market confidence will be the first step in terms of attracting foreign investors (and particularly private equity investors) back to these opportunities on the continent.

The interview was conducted by Thierry Nadjo, an IFC-Milken Institute Capital Market Scholar of West Africa’s Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières.