The African Development Bank’s African Financial Markets Initiative (AFMI) is discussing local-currency bond markets this week in Johannesburg, and over 30 countries will be there according to the press release. Key topics include how to develop domestic institutional investors, with experiences shared from across Africa, and updates on gathering data and help to include more countries in an AfDB-Bloomberg bond index.
AFMI runs a helpful financial markets database, available through their website www.africanbondmarkets.org, featuring bond and money-market news and helpful capital market descriptions for different African countries as well as a data portal.
The first day of the workshop, today 30 Nov, covers the database and the African Fundamental Bond Index as well as technical assistance. It includes how to collect accurate pricing data so that more countries can be included in the African Development Bank (AfDB/AFMI-SM) Bloomberg® African Bond Index (ABABI).
Tomorrow, 1 Dec, is open to investment banks, stockbrokers, exchanges and financial institutions. This includes presentations on the ABABI index, an African Domestic Bond Fund, and perspectives from institutional investors.

To participate in the 1 Dec African bond markets workshop please contact afmi@afdb.org as soon as possible.

AfDB launched the initiative in 2008 as part of its strategy to develop Africa’s financial sector. It contributes to developing domestic bond markets through: the African Financial Markets Database (AFMD); and the African Domestic Bond Fund (ADBF).