conducted seminars with central bankers from 13 african countries. only in may this year, together with the bank of morocco, we organised a conference on “ good governance ” in rabat. participants came from ten different central banks in the frenchspeaking part of africa. and together with the federal financial supervision authority of germany, we are planning a seminar on “ capital market development ” in rwanda. domestic debt markets are the primary way to raise private funds for investment. and they are even more helpful when they raise capital in local currency because no exchange rate variations put the investment decisions at risk. the existence of such a local currency bond market also underscores the credibility of the domestic currency. so far, relatively developed local currency bond markets in africa exist in south africa, egypt and nigeria. together, they account for nearly 90 % of total outstanding local currency bonds in africa. 3 i ’ m convinced that other african countries could benefit from the experience of these three countries. in south africa, for example, the domestic bond market developed as far back as the 1980s, when the country had to look inwards to finance fiscal deficits. 4 nowadays, the south african market is well integrated into international financial markets, and has successfully funded infrastructure to upgrade ports, railways and public utilities such as the power grid. and local currency debt markets also have another advantage. my colleague, governor lesetja kganyago, has once pointed out “ in south africa, the existence of a large and liquid domestic government bond market [ … ] has limited the rise in foreign - currency denominated debt, even as our country has experienced large current account deficits. " today, digital technologies can help develop domestic debt markets. and digital technologies can be key drivers of financial inclusion in less developed countries. in kenya, for example, the share of people with a financial account rose from 42 % in 2011 to 75 % in 2014. over the same period, the respective global figure rose from 51 % to 61 %. in tandem with the mounting ubiquity of cell phones, mobile money accounts have gained popularity, particularly in sub - saharan africa. in some countries, there are even more adults with a mobile money account than a conventional bank account. 5 so when it comes to digitisation in finance, there may be something the g20 can learn from africa, too. in any case, “ compact with africa ” signals that african countries are not alone. a compact has at least two signatories. the g

is the best crop if the farmer can ’ t transport it to the market? and what good is the best engineered car if it can ’ t be shipped to the customer? an economist would put it like this. a functioning infrastructure – the safe supply of electricity, access to roads, railways or the sea – raises the return of private investment. 1 so investment in infrastructure can start a virtuous cycle : when adequate infrastructure raises income and productivity, it becomes easier to mobilise the financial resources for investment in general and infrastructure investment in particular. but unfortunately, the chain of causation can also go the other way round. barry eichengreen has pointed out that countries can find themselves in a low - level equilibrium trap in which the lack of infrastructure limits finance and the lack of finance limits infrastructure. 2 by the time this gasometer was built, germany – and other western countries – had managed to avoid this trap : partly because they developed strong institutions and an effective administration ; they protected private property rights as well as capital markets and banking systems ; moreover the rule of law prevailed. all these factors helped in mobilising financial resources to fund infrastructure projects. this shows that the conditions to mobilise investment can to a large extent be created by the individual countries themselves. this is why the “ compact with africa ” stresses the need to put in place a stable macroeconomic environment, reliable legal systems and appropriate regulatory and supervisory frameworks. these are the three building blocks of the “ compact with africa ” initiative. they go under the headlines ( i ) macroeconomic framework, ( ii ) business framework and ( iii ) financing framework. you will have the opportunity to discuss these three topics during the two breakout sessions this morning and this afternoon. but in the end, when it comes to improving macroeconomic stability and to establishing reliable 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches legal systems as well as sound regulatory frameworks, there is no one - size - fits - all solution. each country has to tailor these general orientations according to its own individual needs. this task cannot be outsourced to someone else. that is why it is called the compact with africa, not for africa. the guiding principle is that our african partner countries are in the driver ’ s seat. and they don ’ t have to begin from scratch. we know at the bundesbank from our technical central bank cooperation that the level of expertise is often quite impressive. in the past years, the bundesbank has