Nigeria will in July host the world as the first ever World Pension Summit focused on Africa will be held in Abuja, the West African country’s capital city.
“We are delighted to bring the World Pension Summit to Africa,” said Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, Acting Director General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom).
Anohu-Amazu said rising investment in natural resources and rich private consumption has bolstered economic growth across the continent. The growth recorded, according to her, has put the pensions industry in pole position to provide stable consumer savings vehicle for Africa’s growing middle class, hence the importance of investment capital from the pensions industry.
The World Pension Summit ‘Africa Special’ will also mark the 10th anniversary of the enactment of the Pension Reform Act 2004. The National Pension Commission (PenCom) was formed the same year as the Regulator for pension matters and had since worked to improve the regulatory framework for Nigeria’s pension sector, armed with more than $23 billion dollars of pension funds.
“Africa’s growth story, particularly Nigeria as its largest economy, has been well documented,” Founder & Chairman of the World Pension Summit, Eric Eggink stated.
He added that the level of growth the continent has experienced calls for expectation, responsibility and opportunity to leverage capital growth.
Pension funds, according to him can be used to further boost the continent’s economic and social development.
Eggink said further that the summit was committed to ensuring Africans enjoy the benefits of the successes recorded by their countries and have their futures secured through sufficient pension provision across the continent.
The event will afford Africa’s pension professionals the opportunity to share practices and blueprints to further develop the continent’s pension market in the next ten year and share lessons learnt in the practice so far as experts also speak on pension administration, regulatory essentials, communication, technology, financial literacy and risk management.
Leading players in the industry will also be on hand to share their global expertise.
Botswana, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana are some of the African countries expected at the summit which will henceforth hold annually.
