An FSDAi perspective on the PRI’s Future of Responsible Investing report, on the occasion of the PRI’s 20th anniversary panel held in Johannesburg on 14 May 2026.
Twenty years ago, a small group of asset owners signed the Principles for Responsible Investment and changed the language of finance. Today, the practices they helped codify are the operating vocabulary of a global industry. This year, the PRI marked that anniversary by asking a harder question: what does the next twenty years require?
Its new report, The Future of Responsible Investing (FoRI), distils the views of 120 organisations into two clear ambitions. First, that responsible investing becomes all investing: a core discipline of every CIO and investment team, not a parallel track run by a sustainability unit. Second, that responsible investing evolves to confront the system-level risks, from climate and nature to demographics, geopolitics and the governance of new technologies, that now define the operating environment for long-term capital.
Both ambitions matter to FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi). We operate where global capital meets African opportunity, and we believe that the next chapter of responsible investing will be written in the markets where the Principles have been hardest to apply.
FSDAi’s CIO, Anne-Marie Chidzero, speaking on the panel at PRI’s 20th anniversary celebration.
FSDAi’s Chief Investment Officer, Anne-Marie Chidzero, joined panellists from 27Four, Old Mutual and Value Capital Partners, moderated by the PRI’s Nathan Fabian, to debate exactly that question. Her message was direct:
“Responsible investing must become all investing, and Africa cannot be left out. Climate, nature, demographics, the governance of AI: these are not future risks on our continent. They are daily life. The real opportunity is to stop treating Africa as the hardest place to invest responsibly, and start treating it as the place where the next generation of responsible investing gets built.”
Anne-Marie Chidzero, Chief Investment Officer, FSD Africa Investments.
Where FSDAi’s work meets the FoRI agenda
The report identifies five practical actions for asset owners who want to lead the next two decades: speaking out on shared interests, raising the visibility of CEOs and CIOs, being transparent with investment managers, engaging policymakers, and supporting innovation through capital allocation. The last of these lands closest to our mandate, and it works on two fronts.
The first is the call to use innovative financing mechanisms, including blended finance, to channel more capital into emerging markets. At FSDAi we deploy catalytic capital to do exactly that, building investable opportunities in green finance, capital markets development and digital finance that institutional investors can credibly follow.
The second is being one of the first to take risk early where commercial capital will not yet go. By backing novel instruments, early-stage funds and underserved markets, FSDAi creates the track record, structures and conditions that allow far larger pools of capital to follow. This is responsible investing as system-building.
What we want from the next 20 years
The FoRI report is candid about what asset owners need from the PRI: amplifying asset owner voices, including those beyond the largest northern institutions; convening with purpose; supporting investor education; and engaging policymakers while respecting regional context.
From an African vantage point, those priorities are essential. The PRI’s “broad tent” only stays broad if it accommodates investors where regulatory frameworks are still maturing, data is patchy, and the trade-offs between development, decarbonisation and decent work are most acute. Africa is also home to a rapidly growing pool of pension and sovereign capital. The next two decades will determine whether it is mobilised for long-term, sustainable returns, or allocated to the same old playbook.
We agree with the report’s central conclusion: the original six Principles remain fit for purpose. The task now is interpretation, application and discipline, and no asset owner can do it alone. FSDAi is committed to playing its part: as a development finance investor putting catalytic capital where the system needs it most, as a partner to African capital market builders, and as a PRI signatory that intends to be heard.
Responsible investing is no longer a choice. It is the only investing that makes sense.
The PRI report, “The Future of Responsible Investing” (April 2026), is available at unpri.org.
