World
Olubiyi, Others to Join Private Sector Investment Lab
By Adedapo Adesanya
The World Bank has announced the selection of 15 Chief Executive Officers and Chairs who will make up the Private Sector Investment Lab.
The founding members comprise a core group charged with developing solutions to address the barriers to private sector investment in emerging markets.
In a statement seen by Business Post, the lender said, “The quality of their individual – and combined – expertise, leadership, and success in business and finance underscores the growing momentum, and level of commitment, for public and private collaboration to address global challenges and urgently scale development solutions.”
The World Bank said it will be drawing on the experience of the 15 CEOs and Chairs that comprise the Lab’s core membership – including leaders from AXA, BlackRock, HSBC, Macquarie, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Ninety One, Ping An Group, Royal Philips, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered, Sustainable Energy for All, Tata Sons, Temasek, and Three Cairns Group.
The Lab will build on the World Bank’s current work to address existing barriers and develop solutions which support private sector investment in emerging markets.
Announced in June, the Lab will identify and focus on specific approaches that can be implemented and scaled by the World Bank to mobilize capital more effectively, with the ultimate goal of crowding in greater levels of private finance.
This includes ideas for improved financing structures, ways to better align the World Bank with the needs and speed of private finance, approaches to balancing and allocating risks across investors and reimagining new partnerships.
The Lab will begin work in the coming weeks, initially focusing on scaling transition finance in renewable energy and energy infrastructure.
Co-Chaired by Mr Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance and Co-Chair of GFANZ, and Mr Shriti Vadera, Chair of Prudential plc, the Lab will meet regularly and report directly to the World Bank Group President, Mr Ajay Banga and World Bank Group leadership.
Speaking on this, Mr Ajay Banga, World Bank President: “The World Bank is on a mission to create a world free of poverty – but on a livable planet. Achieving this vision demands that we build a better bank but also reimagine partnerships and pull in the private sector to confront – and beat – intertwined development challenges like poverty, climate, and fragility.
“The business leaders who are lending their time, talents, and expertise to this work are a crucial piece of the puzzle, and I am beyond grateful to have them onboard.
“Results won’t come overnight, but if successful, this group has the potential to unlock significant investment that will deliver jobs and better quality of life for people living throughout the Global South – the surest way to drive a nail into the coffin of poverty.”
Mr Shriti Vadera, Chair of Prudential plc: “I look forward to working with Ajay Banga and his leadership team, and Mark Carney and our fellow Lab members on the critical priority of how the World Bank can leverage and crowd in greater levels of private finance that will not otherwise be available for global public goods like climate transition, growth and poverty reduction. Every action and every penny from every actor counts, and we should prioritise the solutions and actions that are scalable, speedy, and replicable. Our focus will be on delivery and implementation to try and have a real impact on the ground.”
On his part, Mr Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance and Co-Chair of GFANZ: “In order to address global challenges like climate change and poverty, we need new ways for the public and private sectors to work together to catalyze investment at speed and scale – particularly in developing countries.
“Through the Private Sector Investment Lab, the World Bank and private finance will partner closely to develop, test, implement and ultimately scale financing structures and approaches that can most effectively mobilize private capital. I look forward to working with Ajay, Shriti, and the Lab’s members to deliver on this critical mission with urgency.”
Founding Members
Thomas Buberl, CEO, AXA: “Enabling an effective and fair transition is one of our generation’s greatest challenges. AXA is already active in financing transition projects in emerging countries and we are delighted to join the Private sector Investment Lab to work with other players as well as the World Bank to better catalyze private capital for transition finance in these markets.”
Larry Fink, CEO, BlackRock: “I have spoken for some time now about how reimagining the role of the multilateral development institutions could support an acceleration of investment into emerging markets. I applaud Ajay and his team at the World Bank for their initiative and leadership on this front today, and I am honoured to be asked to lend my support to this work through my participation in the Private Sector Investment Lab.”
Noel Quinn, Group CEO, HSBC Holdings Plc: “A number of financial institutions like HSBC are already developing innovative financing models in the sectors and regions that are critical and challenging to transform in order to reach net zero in time. We need to both scale up these models and develop new ones to accelerate progress. The Private Sector Investment Lab provides an important focal point for collaboration and the sharing of knowledge between financial institutions on this important topic.”
Shemara Wikramanayake, CEO, Macquarie: “Harnessing the large global pools of private sector capital is key to driving better outcomes for emerging markets. The World Bank and other MDBs have a critical role to play in catalysing this capital, including through structures to allocate and manage early-stage risks. Macquarie is delighted to work with this group to support the Private Sector Investment Lab to implement and scale these solutions, starting with a focus on transition finance.”
Hironori Kamezawa, the CEO of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group: “As an Asia-headquartered financial institution with an extensive footprint in emerging economies, MUFG is excited to be part of the Private Sector Investment Lab. The collaboration between public and private finance is critical in mobilizing transition finance, especially in emerging markets. This initiative provides an excellent platform to work in collaboration to address the investment gap for the global common good.”
Hendrik du Toit, CEO, Ninety One: “We welcome this initiative and are grateful to be participating because it is vital for public and private finance jointly to address these challenges.”
Jessica Tan, Co-CEO, Ping An Group: “We are delighted and honoured to join the World Bank Private Sector Investment Lab. At Ping An, in our 35 years, we have a long history of direct investment and commitment to supporting rural revitalization and development as well as education welfare, our Community Support Program in China. We continue to support green finance, financial inclusion and help communities manage climate-related sustainability issues. We believe the private sector can make a tangible difference helping progress towards climate goals, manage the risks of climate change and tackle poverty.”
Feike Sijbesma, Chairman, Royal Philips and Co-Chair, Global Climate Adaptation Centers: “Business cannot be successful in a world that fails. We have a responsibility to contribute to the development work of the World Bank.”
Sim Tshabalala, the CEO of Standard Bank: “Attracting a lot more private investment to emerging markets would significantly accelerate inclusive human development and the just transition towards a low-carbon economy. The Private Sector Investment Lab is asking precisely the right questions about how the private sector and development finance institutions should work together. I am honoured to join this discussion on behalf of Standard Bank.”
Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered: “Standard Chartered has extensive experience in collaborating with the World Bank to finance sustainable projects in emerging markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. As the need to mobilise private capital to close the climate investment gap reaches a critical juncture, we’re committed to providing our longstanding market expertise to the Private Sector Investment Lab to encourage innovation and act as a catalyst for credible progress in private and blended finance.”
Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO, Sustainable Energy for All: “The multiple ongoing global crises affect developing countries around the world disproportionally. Despite already having the solutions to scale up renewable energy-based solutions to deliver development and climate progress, finance needs to be unlocked at scale in developing countries and underserved sectors. This Lab offers us the opportunity to work together to design the solutions that will speed up an inclusive global energy transition.”
N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons: “Needless to say, financing for climate change remains the most important challenge that needs to be addressed. Given the long-term nature of these investments and the risks involved, setting up of the Private Sector Investment Lab to find innovative ways to attract private capital to partner with public investment is an important global initiative. I am pleased to be included in the initiative and looking forward to contributing and developing solutions.”
Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, Executive Director and CEO, Temasek: “Many emerging economies, especially in Asia, find it challenging to adopt sustainable solutions because of fiscal constraints, limited access to private capital, and marginal bankability for many of their transition projects. Transition financing is key to bridging these gaps, and initiatives like the Private Sector Investment Lab are a crucial step in mobilising capital to accelerate the development and scaling of viable pathways towards net zero. I look forward to working closely with my fellow founding members of the Lab, bringing together public and private sector collaboration to ensure that our impact is amplified.”
Mark Gallogly, Co-Founder and Managing Principal, Three Cairns Group: “A dramatic increase in climate finance is needed, especially in emerging economies. Three Cairns has focused on this need through initiatives like Allied Climate Partners. We are honoured to join The Private Sector Investment Lab and work with the World Bank and leading institutions to help generate, test, and scale solutions that can become commensurate to this crisis.”
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A $1 million funding package has been secured by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup, Echovane, to expand its market research platform.
The fresh capital would be used by the company to build AI agents that execute market research end-to-end, used by Fortune-500 firms, including P&G, Haleon, and Kantar.
Echovane will utilise the funds, co-led by Titan Capital and Neon Fund, to make complex market research a done-for-you AI-native service.
The platform is built on the premise that AI should take on the machinery of research while researchers retain control over the judgment. The result should be faster execution without sacrificing rigour, traceability or trust.
Echovane was founded by former Amazon, Stripe, Gojek and Razorpay product leaders and graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology, Smriti Gupta, Vipul Nair and Himadri Roy.
They initially set out to build an AI moderator for consumer interviews. But the deeper they went, the clearer it became that the interview was only a fraction of the problem. Research teams were still spending weeks recruiting participants, coordinating fieldwork, analysing evidence and turning it into something the business could act on.
So, the founders expanded Echovane into the execution layer for the entire research process.
“We thought better AI interviews would unlock faster research. But that was only one step in the research operations, for one methodology of research.
“In reality, research is more complex, and can vary from interviews to unobtrusive observations and longitudinal studies. It has multi-level complexity including finding niche participants, getting the research completed on time with them and maintaining quality checks,” the chief executive of Echovane, Smriti Gupta, stated.
“This funding allows us to deepen the agent infrastructure behind Echovane, expand our multimodal capabilities, and strengthen the global participant network required to deliver increasingly complex studies with consistency,” the chief technical officer, Vipul Nair, noted.
Also commenting, the chief operating officer of Echovane, Himadri Roy, said, “Having done the research ourselves, we understand the operational pain researchers have to go through to conduct a good research that gives useful insights.”
“Echovane has made complex, multi-market studies feel simple. They find the right hard-to-reach participants, handle the nuances across markets and languages, and deliver actionable insights with remarkable speed and consistency,” the Consumer Science and Product Experience Lead for Haleon, Zee Alcasid, disclosed.
“Echovane turned a month of product research into two days. They reached exactly the right participants and let us test, learn and iterate continuously across multiple audiences, countries, product variants all within a single study that would be impossible to execute at speed and scale,” the chief product officer for Trustly, Adam D’arcy, stated.
A spokesperson for Titan Capital said, “We have backed Smriti, Vipul and Himadri because they have deeply understood why market research has stayed slow and expensive for decades.
“With Echovane, they are building an AI-native, end-to-end research platform focused on the quality of the final insight, encoding each client’s context into a system that gets sharper with every study.
“They are turning research from a recurring expense into compounding infrastructure — faster, cheaper and genuinely deeper. Their first-principles thinking and capital-efficient execution gave us confidence in Echovane’s long-term potential.”
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Russia’s system of foreign students’ admission is currently experiencing a completely different shape, due to the rapidly shifting geopolitical reality. The emerging trends are closely connected with increasing the number of highly interested applicants rather than the quality of education. The geopolitical shift is pushing Russia to make education for young Africans an ultimate priority. The quota campaign has already begun as the figure compares favourably with previous benchmarks but, to some considerable extent, noticeable challenges are currently affecting enrollment from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Despite that, general interest in Russian education among foreign nationals is increasing; the quota campaign confirms this trend. Last year, for instance, there were about 144,000 registrations in Rossotrudnichestvo’s Education in Russian system. The number has exceeded 160,000 in 2026. What is important here is that Russia shows preparedness to get more students from developing countries, especially from Africa and uses it as a factor for influencing its foreign policy in the region.
Regarding educational initiatives, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in conjunction with relevant agencies and organisations are active in Africa. Noticeably, Russia is developing and expanding the existing, successfully operating cooperation in the sphere of education. In fact, priority is given to projects in the field of education and training of professional personnel for African countries. Currently, over 37,000 students from Africa are studying at Russian universities. Reports say a gradual increase in the number of scholarships for African citizens and the expansion of the range of professional training programs will provide a strong incentive for further promoting education at Russian universities.
This will continue to actively strengthen inter-university ties with African partners, including through specialised umbrella organisations such as the Russian-African Network University, the Consortium of Technical Universities “Nadra Africa” based at the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University, the Russian-African Network Transport University, and the Consortium of Russian Universities Working in West Africa based at the NGO “Centre for Public Diplomacy.”
Reports further indicated that the Rossotrudnichestvo representative offices—the Russian Science and Culture Centres—operating in eight African countries, as well as the Open Education Centres operating under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Education in 31 African countries, serve as a solid foundation for our humanitarian presence in Africa. They serve as conduits for the Russian language and culture on the continent. It is, however, hoped that their number would only increase in the subsequent years.
While addressing the staff and students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated Russia’s readiness to cooperate actively in the sustainable economic development and to strengthen efforts at training the needed specialists and professionals for Africa. After the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, there were problems sustaining relations with Africa. Then, after more than a decade, Russia started to return to Africa. This process has been ongoing for the past 15 years, according to the top Russian diplomat.
According to Lavrov, these past few years have been characterised by frequent interactions between Russian and African Foreign Ministers, plethora of MoUs were signed that set out the broad parameters of cooperation. Russia’s Education Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry have raised the quotas for many African countries, the highest given to Angola, Ethiopia, Namibia and Mozambique, and South Africa.
According to a report posted on the MFA website in August, for instance, some 1,120 Angolans have enrolled, on Russian scholarships or grants, at various institutes and universities throughout the Russian Federation. Figures for other African countries are available on the official information portal of the ministry.
Besides state-sponsored students, Russia’s Education Ministry has also launched a large-scale educational campaign targeting the recruitment of private foreign students into its educational institutions across the Russian Federation. The program is to be implemented until 2025, which has a website (studyinrussia) translated into different languages, seeks to boost the popularity and improve its image abroad.
Undoubtedly, Russia aims at strengthening the next generation of pro-Russian elites who will help promote its interests, including long-term ones in their home countries. With this in mind, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ultimately, hope to improve the efficiency of “soft power” in Africa, though not to the levels during the Soviet era.
Understandably, Russia is now targeting Africa’s fast-growing population as a huge potential market for knowledge transfer and export education. Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a widely circulated Russian daily newspaper, reported that Russia has been focusing on the young population in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, targeting the elite and middle class in these markets for the export of education, which has great potential.
The newspaper reported on the advantages of multiculturalism and cross-cultural interactive activities paving the way for integration in Russian society. As far back as 2023, Russia’s Federation Council and State Duma (upper and lower houses of parliament) passed a bill. That bill was finally signed into law, allowing foreign students the right to employment, a replica of the work and study model in Western and European countries.
Professor Viktor Sadovnichy, Rector of Moscow State University and Chairman of the Russian Rectors’ Association, an organisation that unites more than 700 heads of higher education institutions, argued that education and demography are interconnected; developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have growing middle classes. “This favours the export of our education; it has great potential cooperating in the education sphere, it could serve as a huge market – training young professionals that are in demand on the labour market,” Sadovnichy said, addressing a plenary meeting of the Russian Rectors’ Association at Peter the Great St Petersburg State Polytechnic University.
Professor Natalia Vlasova, Deputy Rector at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation of the Ural State University of Economics in Yekaterinburg, explained that many African countries are developing rapidly, and the African elites and the growing middle-class have great potential for sponsoring their children’s education abroad. “In the times of the Soviet Union, African countries were strategic partners, and now we should reactivate these relations because in the near future they will have big economic and political power. This could, indeed, be a huge market and has the business potential,” she noted assertively.
An educational survey released in September 2024, divided into five major groups, said Russia has made significant efforts at improving teaching (the learning environment), research, citations (research influence), knowledge transfer, and international outlook (staff, students, research) in the educational field, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
One year after launching a continental initiative designed to make excellence in public governance the foundation of a new drive to transform Africa, LEAD, the Africa CEO Forum’s pan-African leadership programme, takes stock of its first cohort and announces the launch of its second class. Built around a community of senior public decision-makers committed to modernising the state and to the continent’s digital transformation, this new cohort gathers for three days, from 28 to 30 August 2026, on the campus of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Rabat, Morocco.
A second cohort that confirms the programme’s durability
For its second class, LEAD brings together 50 fellows, senior public decision-makers engaged in the design and implementation of the continent’s economic and social policies. Over three days, participants take part in collective and collaborative working sessions, peer exchanges and meetings with figures from the public, business and academic spheres, in order to compare their practices and build shared responses to the major challenges of governance.
Speakers include Mehdi Jomaa, former Head of Government of Tunisia, Donald Kaberuka, Managing Partner & Founder, SouthBridge Group, and former President of the African Development Bank, Serge Ekue, President of the West African Development Bank (BOAD), Sanjay Jain, co-creator of India Stack and Director of Digital Public Infrastructure, Gates Foundation, and Mauricio Cardenas, Professor of Professional Practice in Global Leadership, Columbia SIPA, and former Finance Minister of Colombia (2012-2018).
They share their reform experience, their public policy trade-offs and their view of continental priorities. Throughout the programme, the cohort benefits from the dedicated support of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Asafo & Co, BOAD, BCG and the African Development Bank, LEAD partners that have chosen to invest in the transformation of African public action.
LEAD, a pan-African community serving public action
Created by the AFRICA CEO FORUM, LEAD is a leadership programme whose ambition is to reposition Africa’s administrative elite as a driver of reform, of performance and of dialogue with all the continent’s stakeholders.
Designed for senior African public decision-makers, LEAD sets out to build a lasting community of public officials able to share their experience, compare their practices and build common solutions to the major economic, technological and institutional transformations under way in Africa. That community is structured around three pillars: modernizing the state, improving public services, and strengthening cooperation between governments, development institutions and private-sector players.
From fellows to alumni: a long-term initiative
Made up of 36 fellows drawn from a range of administrations and institutions and representing 24 countries across the continent, LEAD’s first cohort demonstrated the quality and the potential of this community from its very first year. In less than twelve months, six of its members have taken a significant step forward: two have been appointed ministers, two have moved into strategic positions at the highest level of the state and two have been promoted to chief executive roles. These moves, which account for 16.7% of the first class, show the role LEAD plays as an accelerator of impact within African administrations.
By bringing together a new cohort of fellows every year, each of them joining the LEAD alumni community, the initiative follows a long-term trajectory: in time, to unite several hundred African public decision-makers around a shared culture of transparency, performance and regional cooperation.
A first year devoted to public service and digital public infrastructure
Throughout the year, the fellows devoted their work to strengthening African public action, to make excellence in public governance a central lever of transformation. An awareness campaign, run as part of Africa Public Service Day, brought to light those who, within the continent’s administrations and institutions, are concretely transforming public policy and improving the services offered to citizens.
Members of the cohort also took part in a special round table held in Kigali during the ACF 2026, in order to carry their thinking to a wider community of public and private leaders. That forum reinforced LEAD’s role as a platform for dialogue between the administrative elite and the continent’s economic players. Digital public infrastructure (DPI) formed the main thread of this first year of work.
Discussions covered issues at the heart of the digital sovereignty of African states: digital identity, payments, secure data exchange, interoperability, governance and the protection of citizens. This work examined the conditions under which African states are developing, in some cases, and can develop, in others, shared, open infrastructure robust enough to improve the quality of public services while supporting local innovation and preserving the capacity of public authorities to set the rules of the game.
A white paper to move from consuming technology to creating value
This year of work concludes with the publication, in collaboration with BCG, LEAD’s Knowledge Partner, of a white paper on Africa’s place in the digital economy and in artificial intelligence. With the digital economy still accounting for around 5% of African GDP, against close to 15% worldwide, the paper calls on the continent to shift from a logic of technology consumption to one of value creation.
The white paper identifies three structuring priorities for African public actors:
- Building shared digital infrastructure that serves as the backbone of public services and private innovation.
- Pooling investment in order to reach critical mass and avoid the fragmentation of efforts across the continent.
- Favouring open and interoperable architectures, with trust and governance built in by design, so as to protect citizens while stimulating the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The white paper is available here to all public decision-makers, technical partners and institutions concerned.
“LEAD’s first cohort confirms a simple conviction: Africa already has the women and men capable of profoundly transforming public action. Our responsibility, either with our partners, is to give them, at pan-African level, a space in which to compare experience, build common solutions and bring forward a new generation of public policy. With this second cohort, we want to accelerate the move from ambition to execution, in particular on digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence, two decisive issues for sovereignty, for the effectiveness of the state and for value creation across the continent,” says Amir Ben Yahmed, President of the Africa CEO Forum.
