Nigeria · INVESTMENT

African forest investment used to be a quiet conservation topic. It is now about money, jobs and influence – and Lagos, Nigeria, wants to be the room where the deals are done.

Rainforest in the Okwangwo Division of Cross River National Park, Nigeria. Africa holds about 637 million hectares of forest, roughly 16% of the world’s total, and loses close to 4 million hectares a year. (Photo: Charles Emogor, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.)

Inside the African forest investment roundtable in Lagos

The African Forest Forum (AFF) is bringing its African forest investment roundtable to Lagos, Nigeria, on Tuesday, 8 September 2026. AFF is a pan-African forestry body based in Nairobi, Kenya, headed by its executive secretary and chief executive, the Nigerian forestry professor Labode Popoola. It is running the invitation-only meeting with the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Champions for Africa Initiative. AFF has confirmed the city but has not yet named a venue.

AFF calls it an executive dialogue. In plain terms, it is a closed-door meeting to find partners and money for Africa’s forests. The guest list is senior government leaders, business executives, philanthropists, development finance institutions, impact investors and other partners. The contact named on the notice is Tefera Endalamaw, AFF’s resource mobilisation and development officer.

AFF lists five aims for the day: present the new trust fund, raise money for it, build forest value chains and green industry, create work for young people, women and rural households, and form a business coalition for forest-friendly practices. The message is simple. Forests are being treated as an industry, not only as something to protect.

AFF puts the stakes in round numbers. Africa holds about 637 million hectares of forest, roughly 16% of the world’s total, and those forests support more than 400 million people. The continent also loses close to 4 million hectares of forest every year, the heaviest net loss of any region.

The African Forestry Trust Fund sits at the centre

The centrepiece is the African Forestry Trust Fund (AFTF). AFF is setting it up under the SFM Champions for Africa Initiative and says the fund has backing from the African Union Commission. The idea is to pool money from governments, development finance institutions, private investors and philanthropies in one place.

That money would pay for forest restoration, sustainable forest management, conservation, forest-based industry, rural livelihoods and research. The Lagos roundtable is designed to collect the first pledges. AFF has not published a target size for the fund in US$, so the figure to watch is whatever is announced on the day.

Behind the fund sits a wider African argument. The continent should not just sell cheap carbon credits and raw logs. It should own more of the chain: project design, checking and verification, processing, and the jobs that come with them.

Why Lagos wants this meeting

The roundtable is not landing in a vacuum. Lagos State has built its own climate framework, which it calls State-Determined Contributions, or SDCs. Think of it as a state-level version of the climate pledges countries file with the United Nations. Its job is to turn promises into projects that investors can actually fund.

The state has also launched the Lagos Carbon Exchange, billed by its partners as Africa’s first sub-national carbon exchange. It is run with GreenPlinth Africa through the state’s Office of Climate Change and Circular Economy. Lagos is, in addition, the anchor state for Nigeria’s national plan to hand out 80 million clean cookstoves, with about 8 million earmarked for Lagos and the first units given out in Makoko in mid-2025. Cleaner stoves matter to forests in a very direct way: they cut demand for firewood and charcoal, and they earn carbon credits while doing it.

Nigeria’s Carbon Market Activation Policy estimates the country’s cumulative carbon market potential at US$736 million to US$2.5 billion by 2030, spread across forestry, agriculture, renewable energy and clean cooking. Forestry keeps coming up as one of the sectors with the most to gain.

Money, carbon pricing and the new scramble for forests

The Lagos talks are about price as much as climate. African policymakers are tired of taking whatever the voluntary carbon market offers. They want their own measurement, reporting and verification systems, so that African sellers can argue over price from a stronger position.

There is real money circling. On Thursday, 15 January 2026, the Nigerian Exchange Group hosted a chief executives’ roundtable at its Lagos headquarters with Germany’s development finance institution DEG and Africa Foresight Group. The stated aim was to mobilise US$2.5 billion to US$3 billion in climate capital for Nigerian companies. That is the scale Lagos is used to discussing.

The bigger picture is hard to miss. Western development finance institutions, the European Union and multilateral lenders are all raising climate spending in Africa, while Gulf and Asian investors hunt for nature-based assets too. African institutions want to write the rules for how that foreign money comes in, a dynamic explored in Africa: The New Scramble.

Land, livelihoods and who controls the assets

African forest investment runs straight into hard questions about land rights, community control and national sovereignty. AFF’s stated priorities include rural livelihoods, jobs for young people and women, and biodiversity businesses. That wording suggests the organisers know the projects have to pay off locally, not only on a carbon ledger.

Even so, the guest list leans heavily towards business leaders, development finance institutions and impact investors. The people who put up the money usually shape how a project is designed and who carries the risk. The fine print on forest concessions, carbon rights and benefit-sharing will decide who really gains if carbon prices rise.

For African governments carrying heavy debt, forests are useful in three ways: as security in debt-for-climate swaps, as a source of hard currency through carbon-credit sales, and as leverage in global talks. Nigeria hosting this meeting is a signal. Lagos wants to help write the deals, not simply sign them afterwards.

What to watch after 8 September

The first test is simple. Does anyone actually pledge money to the African Forestry Trust Fund on the day, and how much in US$? AFF has published no target, so the first credible number will set the tone. Watch the names too: which governments, banks and companies turn up, and whether the African Union Commission backs the fund in public.

The longer question is who sets the standards. If African institutions can define what good African forest investment looks like, and on what terms outside money may join, they will shape who controls the continent’s forests and who keeps the carbon revenue. If they cannot, this new forest asset class risks repeating a very old pattern.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• afforum.org
• bizwatchnigeria.ng
• events.climateaction.org
• Nigeria Carbon Market Activation Policy (ossapcfse.org)
• fao.org (Global Forest Resources Assessment)
• businessday.ng
• guardian.ng

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