Geneva and Africa — a part of the book Geneva as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos.
Geneva maintains relations with Africa that few European financial centres of its size can claim. Through commodity trading, it buys a considerable share of the oil, cocoa, coffee, cotton and metals that the continent exports. Through banking, it manages African fortunes, legitimate and sometimes illicit. It has returned more than two billion dollars in assets of deposed leaders. Through diplomacy, it hosts the missions of every African state to the United Nations and the organisations that deal with health, refugees, trade and human rights on the continent. Through language, it shares with some twenty African countries the French language, the language of their administrations, their legal systems and their business. These relations are long-standing, dense and at times controversial. They make Geneva an African crossroads whose importance is often underestimated in Switzerland itself.
Part I examines these relations in six chapters. The first retraces their history, from the missionaries and traders of the nineteenth century to independence and International Geneva. The second describes the trading of African commodities from Geneva, its volumes, its players and its controversies. The third analyses resource-backed financing, prepayments and their effects on the debt of African countries. The fourth deals with the assets of African elites, politically exposed persons and the restitution of illicit assets, from the Abacha case to the federal act of 2015. The fifth describes the new bridges being built between Geneva and the continent: business forums, investment, fintech and the diaspora. The sixth proposes good practices for banks, traders and advisers who work with Africa.
The author approaches this part with a conviction and a caution. The conviction is that Geneva possesses, in its relations with Africa, an asset that its competitors lack, made up of linguistic proximity, accumulated experience and institutional presence. The caution is that this asset has, on several occasions, been placed at the service of practices — plundering of resources, concealment of embezzled assets, corruption — that have harmed African populations and the reputation of the financial centre. The chapters that follow seek to describe both faces of this relationship, without complacency and without presuming bad faith.
This part belongs to Geneva as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos, published here in full, section by section.
A long-standing relationship: missions, trading, independence, International Geneva — overview and summary
Relations between Geneva and Africa go back well before contemporary commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe missions and the Geneva view of Africa
In the nineteenth century, Protestant Geneva took part in the missionary movement that brought European pastors, physicians and teachers to Africa. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMerchants, bankers and colonial trade
Switzerland never possessed colonies, but its merchants and bankers took part in colonial trade from the eighteenth century onwards. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaIndependence and International Geneva
The African independences, between the late 1950s and the mid-1970s, transformed the relationship between Geneva and the continent. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva and French-speaking Africa
The French language constitutes a particular link between Geneva and some twenty African countries, the significance of which Part J will analyse. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe years 1980-2000: African fortunes and the first cases
During the 1980s and 1990s, financial relations between Geneva and Africa intensified, against a background marked by the continent’s economic crises, structural adjustment programmes, indebtedness… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSwitzerland and apartheid: an open file
Relations between Switzerland and apartheid-era South Africa constitute a sensitive chapter, which historical research has illuminated only in part. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva, an African crossroads in the 21st century
At the turn of the 21st century, Geneva established itself as a crossroads of African business. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaWhat history teaches
The history of relations between Geneva and Africa teaches several things that the following chapters will explore in greater depth. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva’s African diaspora
Geneva is home to a large and diverse African diaspora, made up of international civil servants, diplomats, students, entrepreneurs, professionals and workers from across the continent. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva and the African institutions
Geneva hosts meetings and representations of African institutions: the African Union maintains a permanent delegation to the United Nations in Geneva, the regional economic communities and the… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSwiss development cooperation in Africa
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs run cooperation programmes in Africa that constitute one of the oldest and most continuous channels of… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaTrade between Switzerland and Africa in figures
Trade between Switzerland and Africa provides a partial measure of the relationship. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva’s banks and Africa: a discreet history
The banking relationship between Geneva and Africa preceded contemporary commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfricans in Geneva: students, diplomats, executives
The relationship also runs through people. Since independence, Geneva has welcomed African students to its faculties of law, economics and medicine and to the Graduate Institute of International… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaInternational Geneva and the African crises
Africa’s crises, whether humanitarian, health-related or political, are dealt with in part in Geneva. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva and North Africa: the Maghreb and Egypt
Although the present chapter has spoken mainly of sub-Saharan Africa, the trade figures serve as a reminder that North Africa weighs at least as heavily in the relationship. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe sources: archives, historiography and debates
The history of the relations between Geneva and Africa has yet to be written as a whole. The reader who wishes to explore it further has to rely on scattered sources. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: understanding a client’s relations with an African country
Identify the channels through which the client is linked to the country: origin, activities, public office, family relations, investments. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican commodities: oil, cocoa, coffee, cotton, metals, gold — overview and summary
Africa is, after Europe, the second largest region of origin of the commodities traded from Switzerland. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaOil from the Gulf of Guinea
Oil is the leading African product traded from Geneva. The countries of the Gulf of Guinea — Nigeria, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana — and, to a lesser extent, Chad, South… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCocoa and coffee
West Africa supplies the greater part of the world’s cocoa, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana being the leading producers, followed by Nigeria and Cameroon. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCotton
Cotton from West Africa — Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Chad, Cameroon — is one of the main export crops of the Sahel region, where it provides a livelihood for millions of people. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCopper, cobalt and the metals of the energy transition
Central and southern Africa supply a significant share of the world’s copper and cobalt, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo dominating the production of cobalt, which is indispensable for… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGold
Gold occupies a particular place in the relations between Switzerland and Africa. Switzerland is home to several of the world’s leading gold refineries, whose importance Part G recalled. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe distribution of value
The central question in the trade in African commodities is that of the distribution of value between producing countries, traders and consumers. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva traders and African states: three models of relationship
The relationships between Geneva traders and African states can be described according to three models, each of which carries advantages and risks. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe national oil companies: governance and issues
The African national oil companies — those of Nigeria, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and others — are the main counterparties of the Geneva traders for oil. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaInfrastructure: ports, refineries, warehouses
The trade in African commodities depends on infrastructure whose condition determines costs and risks. African ports, often congested and poorly equipped, lengthen loading and unloading times. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaTimber, fertilisers and the other flows
Beyond the major products, other flows link Africa to Geneva trading. Tropical timber from Central Africa — Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo — is exported to Europe and Asia… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCocoa in 2025-2026: record prices and fragility
Since 2024 the cocoa market has experienced an unprecedented surge in prices, triggered by poor harvests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together supply the greater part of world production, as a… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGold: the Swiss refineries and traceability
Gold is the leading African product imported into Switzerland, as the figures in Chapter I showed. Its trade raises questions that the trade in oil or cocoa does not encounter to the same degree. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaOil from Nigeria, Angola and Congo: contracts and practices
The African oil traded from Geneva comes mainly from Nigeria, Angola, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaFertilisers, rice and food security
The relationship with Africa, which is not confined to African exports, also comprises imports that Geneva traders organise towards the continent. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCongolese cobalt in 2025-2026: quotas and sovereignty
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, which produced around 74 per cent of the world’s cobalt in 2025, decided that year to bring its weight to bear on the market. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSimandou iron ore: a new African flow
The Simandou project in Guinea shows the scale on which African flows can be created. Read more Geneva · Geneva and Africa“African quality” fuels: the toxic fuels affair
Geneva’s trading sector sells part of its fuels to Africa, an activity that was the subject, in September 2016, of a Public Eye investigation that left its mark on the financial centre. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCoffee: Ethiopia, Uganda and the Lake Geneva traders
African coffee deserves a treatment of its own, which this chapter has so far dealt with alongside cocoa. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: structuring a commodity purchase from an African state-owned enterprise
Verify that the seller has the authority to market the production and that the award procedures — tender, direct contract — are documented. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaResource-backed loans and African debt — overview and summary
When an oil-producing state needs money and the capital markets are closed to it, it can pledge its future production. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe mechanism
A loan backed by natural resources is, according to the definition given by the Natural Resource Governance Institute, a mechanism by which a country obtains funds in exchange for future revenue… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe data
The Natural Resource Governance Institute examined 52 resource-backed loans granted between 2004 and 2018, for a total amount of more than USD 164 billion, of which 30, with a combined value of USD… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChad and Glencore
The case of Chad illustrates the mechanisms and the risks. In May 2013 and April 2014, the national company, the Société des hydrocarbures du Tchad, concluded prefinancing agreements with Glencore… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe Republic of the Congo, Glencore and Trafigura
The Republic of the Congo, whose corruption cases involving Gunvor were described in Part H, contracted oil-backed loans of considerable size from Swiss traders. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe effects on African debt
Resource-backed loans contributed to the debt crises that struck several African countries after 2014. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe implications for the Geneva financial centre
Resource-backed loans place particular responsibilities on Geneva’s traders, banks and advisers. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChinese creditors and traders: two logics
The coexistence of Chinese state-owned banks and international traders among the resource-backed lenders in Africa calls for a comparison. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaResource-backed loans and the law
Resource-backed loans raise legal questions that Geneva practitioners encounter in structuring and in litigation. The governing law is most often English law or Swiss law. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe international framework: restructurings and the Common Framework
Resource-backed loans belong to a landscape of African debt that the 2020s have transformed. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAnalysing sustainability: what the lender must verify
A Geneva lender contemplating a prepayment facility for an African state or state-owned enterprise must carry out a sustainability analysis that recent cases have made indispensable. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe clauses of resource-backed loans: what a lawyer examines
Resource-backed loan agreements, drafted in English and most often governed by English law, combine a credit agreement with a long-term supply contract, with clauses that Geneva lawyers have learned… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe alternatives: projects, bonds, development banks
Resource-backed loans are not the only way of financing a producer state. Project finance, which secures the loan against a specific asset, whether a mine, a refinery or a pipeline, with dedicated… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe trading house as lender: a model in question
The transformation of trading houses into lenders to states, which this chapter has described, raises a question of business model. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAngola and China: the largest borrower
Angola, which the Natural Resource Governance Institute identifies as Africa’s largest borrower under resource-backed loans, illustrates the Chinese version of the mechanism on the scale of an entire… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSouth Sudan: prepayments in a conflict zone
South Sudan, independent since 2011 and in civil war from 2013, is the third country, alongside Chad and the Republic of the Congo, where trading houses have been the main providers of oil-backed… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe Ghanaian counter-example: the Cocobod syndicated loan
Not all resource-backed financing is opaque. Ghana’s cocoa board, Cocobod, has every year since the 1992–1993 season taken out a syndicated loan from international banks to finance the purchase of… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaReporting and measuring: resource-backed loans in debt statistics
One of the reasons for the opacity of resource-backed loans lies in their statistical treatment. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: structuring a prepayment to an African state-owned enterprise
Verify the legal capacity of the state-owned enterprise to contract, the parliamentary or governmental authorisations required and the state guarantees. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican elites, politically exposed persons and restitution: from Abacha to the act of 2015 — overview and summary
Since the 1980s Switzerland has returned more than USD 2 billion in illicit assets of politically exposed persons to foreign states. A substantial share of these restitutions concerns Africa. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaFrom cases to statutes: a history in three stages
The history of illicit asset recovery in Switzerland can be read in three stages. The first, opened in 1986 by the Marcos and Duvalier cases, is that of freezes ordered case by case by the Federal… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe Abacha case
Sani Abacha, Nigerian head of state from 1993 to 1998, embezzled, according to Public Eye, more than USD 2.2 billion in public funds. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe current framework: the Act on illicit assets
The Federal Act on the Freezing and Restitution of Illicit Assets Held by Foreign Politically Exposed Persons provides for three stages. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe African restitutions and their lessons
Beyond Nigeria, several African countries have benefited from Swiss restitutions or freezes. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaWhat this means for Geneva’s banks and advisers
For Geneva institutions serving an African clientele, the history of asset recovery imposes several requirements. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva’s role in asset recovery
Geneva occupies a particular place in the recovery of illicit assets. The Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office conducted the criminal proceedings that led to the confiscation of the Abacha funds in… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican politically exposed persons: a typology
The category of politically exposed persons covers, in Africa as elsewhere, a variety of situations, which institutions must assess with discernment. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMarcos, Duvalier, Arab Spring: the other cases
The Swiss asset-recovery framework was built on cases several of which are not African. Comparing them sheds light on the African situation. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMonitoring the restituted funds
Restitution, which does not close the case, opens the question of how the funds are used. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican politically exposed persons today
The African politically exposed clientele of the financial centre has changed in nature since the affairs of the 1990s. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMutual legal assistance: the ordinary route
The administrative freeze described in this chapter is the exception. The ordinary route for asset recovery is international mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, governed by a federal act of… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe United Nations Convention against Corruption and asset recovery
The Swiss framework forms part of a multilateral setting. The United Nations Convention against Corruption, the only global agreement in this field, brings together 191 states parties. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaIll-gotten gains: the Obiang affair in Geneva
Restitution cases concern property as well as accounts. In 2016 the Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office opened criminal proceedings against the entourage of the President of Equatorial Guinea, in the… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: serving an African private clientele in compliance with the asset-recovery framework
Identify the links of the client and his entourage with the exercise of public functions, public contracts, concessions and state-owned enterprises. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe new bridges: forums, investment, fintech, diaspora — overview and summary
Relations between Geneva and Africa go far beyond commodity trading and the assets of the elites. For some fifteen years, new bridges have been under construction. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe forums: Geneva as a meeting place for the African private sector
The Africa CEO Forum, founded in Geneva in 2012, is the most visible of these bridges. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe federal strategy for Africa
On 13 January 2021 the Federal Council approved its first strategy for sub-Saharan Africa, covering the period 2021–2024. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaProductive investment: an imbalance to be corrected
The main imbalance in relations between Geneva and Africa lies in the gap between the intensity of trading and wealth management and the weakness of productive investment. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaFintech, crypto assets and digital assets
Africa is a pioneer in financial technology. With 50 per cent of all mobile current accounts in the world, according to the federal strategy of 2021, the continent invented a form of banking without… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe diaspora as a bridge
Geneva’s African diaspora, whose diversity Chapter I described, forms a bridge of a particular kind. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe conditions for success
The new bridges between Geneva and Africa will bear fruit only under certain conditions. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaKigali 2026: the African private sector in search of critical mass
The Africa CEO Forum, founded in Geneva in 2012, was held in 2026 in Kigali, on 14 and 15 May, in the presence of heads of state and several thousand executives, on the theme of the critical mass… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaMobile money: USD 1,400 billion
In fifteen years Africa has built a payment infrastructure that Europe does not have. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe African Continental Free Trade Area
The economic integration of the continent is advancing with the African Continental Free Trade Area, whose agreement was signed in 2018 and under which trading began in 2021, with the aim of… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPan-African banks and their Geneva partners
The African banking landscape has been transformed by the emergence of pan-African groups, Moroccan, Nigerian, South African and East African, present in dozens of countries, which have taken over… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrivate equity and African funds
African private equity, long a marginal activity, has become organised since the 2010s with pan-African and regional managers, funds specialising by sector, energy, agriculture, health, technology,… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican climate finance
Africa, which emits a small share of the world’s greenhouse gases and suffers a disproportionate share of the effects of climate change, needs adaptation and transition finance that international… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe federal strategy 2025–2028: what it provides and what is missing
The Federal Council’s Africa strategy for 2025–2028, described above, covers the whole continent for the first time and sets priorities: peace and governance, prosperity and transition, migration and… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaInvestment protection agreements and risk insurance
The Geneva investor who commits capital in Africa has at his disposal a legal framework that Switzerland has been building since the 1960s. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaHealth: the leading export item and a Geneva cluster
The first product that Switzerland sells to Africa is medicine: pharmaceutical products represented 46 per cent of Swiss exports to the continent in 2022, far ahead of chemicals, watches and… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican sovereign bonds and Geneva’s asset managers
The most important channel, by volume, through which savings managed in Geneva finance Africa is probably the sovereign bond market. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaCasablanca, Mauritius, Kigali: the African financial centres
Geneva is no longer alone in claiming the role of Africa’s financial centre. The African centres have developed. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: preparing an investment in Africa from Geneva
Choose the country and the sector on the basis of an analysis of political stability, the legal framework, infrastructure and demand, taking account of the diversity of the continent. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGood practices: banks, traders and advisers dealing with Africa — overview and summary
The preceding chapters have described the relations between Geneva and Africa in their historical depth, their economic intensity and their ambivalence. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 1: distinguishing without discriminating
The first principle consists in distinguishing, among African clients, counterparties and transactions, those that present particular risks from those that do not, without treating the continent as a… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 2: knowing the origin of funds and goods
The second principle consists in knowing the origin of funds, for wealth management and financing, and the origin of goods, for commodity trading. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 3: controlling intermediaries
The third principle consists in controlling the intermediaries — agents, business introducers, local partners, shell companies — through which corrupt payments frequently pass. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 4: anticipating political risk
The fourth principle consists in anticipating political change, whose frequency recent African history makes plain: coups d’état, contested transitions, changes of government. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 5: contributing to development
The fifth principle consists in conceiving relationships with Africa as partnerships in which the continent itself benefits. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 6: documenting in order to last
The five preceding principles have one thing in common: they are worth nothing unless they are documented. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaPrinciple 7: training and involving African partners
The final principle goes beyond compliance. Geneva actors who work with Africa over the long term have an interest in training and involving their African partners: the employees of their local… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaA country analysis grid
The principles are applied country by country, with the help of an analysis grid that structures the examination. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaAfrican intermediaries: a standard procedure
Intermediaries, whose role in corruption cases Part H has shown, require in Africa a procedure adapted to local realities. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaRelations with African authorities
In Africa, Geneva actors deal with tax authorities, central banks, financial regulators and prosecuting authorities whose practices vary. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaDisputes with African partners
Despite all precautions, disputes arise, and their handling has its own particularities. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaWhat African actors expect of Geneva
Since the good practices described in this chapter are written from the Geneva point of view, it is useful to hear the African one. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaGeneva and Africa in 2035
In the scenarios that Part K proposes for the financial centre, the relationship with Africa occupies a place that this chapter can define more precisely. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThree typical situations
Three situations, described schematically and in fictional terms, illustrate the application of these principles. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaThe internal governance of African relationships
The principles of this chapter presuppose an organisation. In the Geneva institutions that deal with Africa, the cases described in Parts H and I revealed one constant: the decision to enter into a… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaSanctions against African states
The sanctions regimes, whose operation Part H has described, concern several African states. The Geneva practitioner must be familiar with them. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaTwo further situations: gold and diaspora remittances
Two situations, fictional like the preceding ones, complete the three typical situations. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaA financial centre charter for Africa?
The principles of this chapter are formulated for individual institutions. It remains to be seen whether they could be formulated for the financial centre as a whole. Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaConclusion of Part I
The relations between Geneva and Africa are long-standing, dense and ambivalent. They run through the missions and colonial trade, through the independences and International Geneva, through the… Read more Geneva · Geneva and AfricaChecklist: assessing an African business relationship as a whole
Place the country in context by reference to governance indices, international reports, sanctions regimes and asset freezes ordered by the Federal Council. Read more