Kenya’s Ksh 3.1 trillion pension industry could become a major source of funding for infrastructure and businesses under a new investment strategy by British International Investment (BII), as the UK-backed financier seeks to draw more private money into Africa.
BII is looking to change how development projects across the continent are financed by bringing domestic institutional investors, particularly pension funds, into projects that have traditionally depended heavily on government funding and development finance institutions.
The institution has launched a five-year strategy covering 2026 to 2031, under which it plans to invest $6.7 billion of its own capital across Africa and mobilise an additional $5.3 billion from private investors.
The combined $12 billion investment ambition reflects an effort to use development finance as a means of attracting larger pools of commercial funding rather than relying on one institution to finance projects on its own.
Kenya presents an important opportunity for this approach because of the size of its pension industry and the country’s established financial markets.
Data from the Retirement Benefits Authority shows that pension assets reached Ksh 3.167 trillion in June 2026. Despite this sizeable investment pool, only 0.02 per cent was allocated to infrastructure debt instruments and 0.62 per cent to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).
