Global pension funds have a good reason to look at African infrastructure, according to Nicolas J. Firzli, co-founder and Managing Director of the World Pensions Council.

“In general, if you look at an infrastructure asset, it looks like a long dated bond so is good for matching income and liabilities,” Firzli said at the FT Africa Infrastructure conference 2015 in London.

Firzli explained that many pension funds are inherently progressive with members who are teachers or civil servants.

“They would like to help poor countries, but are also self-serving and in need of a decent return,” he said.

It is estimated that Africa as a whole needs infrastructure investments to the tune of $93bn a year, but currently less than half of that is being spent every year, leading to an investment gap of an estimated $50bn, according to AfDB.

Most investments are in power, but transport and water account for 20% of the total sums invested.

To industrialise Africa, the continent needs vast improvements in infrastructure and slowly, things are moving in the right direction.

In KPMG’s most recent compilation of the world’s most excellent 100 infrastructure projects in terms of scale, feasibility, technical or financial complexity, innovation and impact on society, 11 were African.

In a sense, the money is already there.

If the rules governing the African Central Banks and African banking reserves were relaxed, more than $1tr would be freed up - easily enough to close the $48bn yearly investment gap and bring much needed extra growth.

Instead, this money is locked into AAA denoted Western securities leaving the continent in dire need of foreign investments.

The worldwide downturn has limited the usual institutional development funds, which only further compounds this need.

However, if Western pension funds move into the sector, they will not be without competition, according to Robert Tashima of Oxford Business Group.

“Over three quarters of Africa’s FDI stock is held by the US and European economies, but China is pretty aggressive about growing and according to their prime minister they are targeting $400bn worth of trade and a $100bn worth of investment in Africa by 2020,” he said at the conference.

Korean, Brazilian, Russian and Middle Eastern money is also at the ready or already invested.

Africa’s population is growing at a phenomenal rate and the infrastructure needs to develop accordingly.

With developed economies offering negative interest rates, there has never been and might never be a better time for Africa to ask for a share of the world’s investable assets.