By Martha Agas
The Abuja Prosperity and Investment Laboratory (APIL) says it has unveiled a platform aimed at transforming how investment opportunities are structured and financed at the subnational level.
The platform was unveiled at a high-level multi-stakeholder policy roundtable at the World Trade Center in Abuja.
The roundtable was convened by BraveICONS Global (BIG) in collaboration with the National Chamber Policy Centre (NCPC).
A statement on the unveiling was made available to newsmen on Thursday in Abuja by Mr Fife Banks, the convener of APIL and Managing Partner of BIG.
In the statement, Banks said the platform was conceived to bridge the gap between investment opportunities and capital by improving readiness, structuring and institutional coordination.
He said the platform would develop an initial portfolio of opportunities, assess investment readiness in Abuja, map key stakeholders across sectors and produce a baseline report to guide investment planning.
“The platform will focus on identifying viable opportunities, improving investment readiness, supporting project preparation and structuring alongside strengthening alignment between public institutions and private capital,” he said.
Banks said a working group would be established to drive the implementation.
According to him, with strong participation from public and private sector stakeholders, the platform is expected to contribute to improved investment pipelines, increased capital deployment and stronger coordination across institutions.
He said Abuja would serve as the pilot location, with the model expected to be refined and scaled to other subnational entities subsequently.
“APIL is designed to prevent viable opportunities from failing due to weak preparation, misalignment or inadequate structuring,” he said.
Banks noted that many investment opportunities across emerging markets failed to reach financial close not due to lack of investor interest, but because of structural and coordination gaps, which APIL aims to address.
A key outcome of the roundtable, he said, was the recognition that investment mobilisation must evolve from policy ambition to execution discipline.
To support this shift, he said APIL would adopt a structured approach to track opportunities from identification through readiness, structuring and investment, culminating to measurable outcomes.
He, however, said that APIL was not a funding vehicle, but a structured execution platform aimed at improving how capital was deployed into real, investable opportunities.
According to him, the unveiling of the platform marks the beginning of a coordinated, implementation-focused effort to strengthen systems that attract, structure and channel investment into viable projects at the subnational level.
He said the diverse participation at the roundtable underscored the need for coordinated cross-sector approaches to investment mobilisation.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the roundtable was part of APIL’s broader mandate to design practical models that can be effectively implemented to mobilise investment at the subnational level.
The roundtable brought together representatives from government institutions, investment promotion agencies, financial institutions, development partners, diplomatic missions, academia, and the private sector.
They examined structural barriers to investment mobilisation and capital deployment in Abuja and neighbouring states. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Yakubu Uba
