Skip to Content Skip to Menu Skip to Footer

Daily Update — November 19, 2025

Sustainable Finance in Africa; AI Sentiment; and Private Capital Mobilization

Today is Wednesday, November 19, 2025, and here’s your curated selection of Essential Intelligence on global markets from S&P Global. Subscribe to be notified of each new Daily Update.

Subscribe

Energy Transition & Sustainability

Sustainable finance is growing in Africa, but volumes fall short of addressing needs

Sustainable debt volumes in Africa are rising, reaching a record of nearly $13 billion in 2024. Yet, African sustainable bond issuance constitutes less than 1% of the global total and remains insufficient to address the continent’s development and infrastructure needs. Most of the allocation from green, social and sustainable bonds goes to renewable energy projects, which are key to addressing Africa’s energy transition needs and ensuring broader and more stable access to electricity. Climate change adaptation, water security and biodiversity preservation may benefit from broader financing strategies.

 

S&P Global Ratings has published 17 second-party opinions (SPOs) for financial institutions, corporates and sovereign governments across Africa. Financial institutions account for the majority of SPOs and have dominated the sustainable bond sector in Africa over the past five years. Sovereign issuance across the continent is expected to grow in the coming years, driven by investor appetite and governments’ efforts to address environmental and social challenges.

Artificial Intelligence

Listen: The Decisive | PMI in Focus: Global Business Outlook and AI Sentiment


In this episode of “The Decisive” podcast, S&P Global Market Intelligence senior economists Pollyanna de Lima and Andrew Harker joined host Paul Smith to explore the latest trends in Purchasing Managers' Indexes (PMIs) and their implications for the global economy. They discussed the resilience of global economic growth in 2025 amid challenges such as low business confidence, tariffs and trade uncertainties, and analyzed the mixed performance of Latin America, with notable expansions in Colombia contrasted with contractions in Brazil and Mexico.

 

The experts also discussed rising investment in AI across various sectors, examining how firms are leveraging AI for efficiency, recruitment and customer acquisition while facing implementation difficulties and accuracy concerns.

Private Markets

Reinforcing private capital mobilization in Africa through blended finance


Africa faces a critical shortfall in climate and sustainable development financing. The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, Spain, reaffirmed the urgency of mobilizing private capital, primarily through blended finance models tailored to local contexts. However, fragmented markets, regulatory hurdles and low investor appetite continue to challenge scale and efficiency.

 

The launch of the Sevilla Platform for Action and increased cross-sector collaboration signal a new era of opportunity. If adequately supported, these efforts could shift how private investment is mobilized to meet Africa’s climate and sustainable development goals.

In case you missed it

  • Eight M&A deals with transaction values greater than $10 billion were announced in October, marking the busiest month for large M&A deals worldwide since May 2022.
  • Japan's three megabanks raised their full-year earnings targets, expecting to benefit from higher interest rates, a trade deal with the US and the yen's depreciation against the dollar.
  • UK biofuel supply reached 6.8% of total transport fuel supply in the first 10 months of 2025, while the inaugural Sustainable Aviation Fuel Mandate only had a 1.6% adoption rate, revealing a fundamental market gap between the country’s regulatory ambition and supply-side mobilization.

Upcoming events