Financing Sustainability, Not Just Reporting It

By Kelly Mua Kingsly

I left Geneva with a question I cannot shake: is Africa merely reporting sustainability, or financing it?

The prompt was ISAR43, the 43rd session of the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting. For three days, specialists debated what sounds like a technical matter: how financial reporting and sustainability reporting fit together. Beneath the jargon lies something far larger. Reporting standards shape what investors see, how they price risk and how companies are valued. In the end they decide where money flows.

For Africa, the stakes are enormous. The continent needs roughly US$2.7 trillion by 2030 to meet its climate and development goals, or about US$242 billion a year. In 2022 it received around US$47 billion in climate finance, roughly a fifth of what is required. The assets are plain enough: vast natural capital, abundant renewable-energy potential, pressing infrastructure needs and a restless entrepreneurial class. What is missing is money, and trust in the numbers that would bring it.

A Continent Already on the Move

The old picture of Africa waiting passively for rules written elsewhere is out of date. South Africa has decades of experience with integrated reporting. Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and others are advancing sustainability-reporting regimes and frameworks tied to the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Across the continent, regulators are building capacity and governments are drafting sustainable-finance taxonomies. Africa is assembling its own sustainable-finance architecture.

The next step is to make sure that architecture has a say in the global one. Africa should not only adopt international standards but help shape how they are applied. That is not a plea for exemptions. It is a demand that global rules reflect African economic realities, from the weight of informal enterprise to the cost of data collection in thinly resourced markets. Geneva showed the value of regional partnerships: delegates from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eurasia compared notes on what works. A standard designed without such voices risks being a standard that fits only some of the world.

From Compliance to Competitiveness

The hardest part of sustainability reporting is not the standard. It is the capacity to adapt to it. At a high-level capacity-building program convened by UNCTAD alongside ISAR43, experts examined how countries can build the regulatory, institutional and human capacity to implement internationally recognized disclosure requirements. The ISSB standards, assurance requirements, public-sector reporting and practical implementation tools are all changing how organizations measure and communicate value.

Change presents a choice: wait for certainty, or learn and adapt. Certainty is not coming. Four habits separate the adapters from the waiters.

Ask what change enables, not merely what it requires. “How do we comply?” is a defensive question. “What can this unlock?” is a strategic one.

Treat learning as a routine. Standards, technology and markets are all evolving. Professional skills must evolve faster.

Build resilience before the pressure arrives. Invest in people, data, systems, governance and assurance now, not after the regulator calls.

Break the silos. Sustainability can no longer sit with one department. Chief financial officers, accountants, auditors, investors, regulators, technology teams and boards must work from the same data and the same playbook.

The Chain that Matters

The most important shift is a change of purpose. Reporting should not become one more compliance cost. Done well, it is the first link in a chain: data, trust, risk, capital, impact. Credible data builds trust. Trust allows risk to be priced sensibly. Sensibly priced risk draws capital. Capital, properly deployed, produces impact.

That chain can unlock private capital, bank lending, sustainable bonds, green and transition finance, institutional investment, natural-capital finance, energy-transition investment and blended finance. It works only if everyone along it is in the room: accountants, finance ministries, central banks, stock exchanges, regulators, investors and development institutions. The question for Africa is therefore not “how do we comply?” but “how do we turn better information into more capital for Africa?”

The Task Ahead

Africa should not merely report its sustainable future. It should help design the information architecture that finances it. Uncertainty cannot be eliminated, but the capacity to navigate it can be built. The professionals who will thrive are those who adapt, and adaptation is a choice.

So the question for every CEO, CFO, auditor, regulator and investor is a simple one: what are you changing today to be ready for tomorrow?

Kelly Mua Kingsly brings extensive expertise in public finance and strategic leadership. He currently serves as the Head of Finance Operations at the Ministry of Finance of Cameroon, while also holding a dual role as Project Finance Manager at the Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Regional Development, and Censor at the Central Bank of Central African States (BEAC). He has previously served as Chairperson of the Board of the African Trade & Investment Development Insurance (ATIDI) and as a Director on the Board of Quantum Blockchain Capital. Driven by a strong passion for Africa’s economic transformation, he is deeply committed to advancing the continent’s path toward industrialization.