Joanne Manda was on the sidelines of the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali on May 15 when she said something that stopped the conversation: "We are no longer waiting for handouts. We are getting our hands dirty and actually doing the work." As Global Lead of timbuktoo, the UNDP-backed initiative that describes itself as the world's largest platform supporting Africa's innovation ecosystem, she has the numbers to back that energy up.
African investors accounted for 45% of total venture fund commitments in 2025, up from an average of 23% between 2022 and 2024, according to the African Private Capital Association. It is the highest domestic participation rate the continent has ever recorded, and for Manda, it signals something bigger than a funding statistic. It points to a genuine shift in how Africans are thinking about, and betting on, their own economies.
timbuktoo itself is working at continental scale to match that ambition. The platform currently runs six pan-African thematic hubs and has trained 3,480 innovators, according to its Q1 2026 report. It also operates 16 University Innovation Pods across the continent, with 12 more in the pipeline, directly targeting what investors repeatedly identify as their biggest barrier to growth: talent.
Manda describes timbuktoo as a partnership platform that brings together governments, private sector corporates, and the timbuktoo Foundation to build startup ecosystems across all 54 African countries. She is clear-eyed about how ambitious that is. Every country brings its own market, culture, language, and quirks. But her pan-Africanist conviction is that solidarity has to come through in the programming, not just the pitch decks.
Her full conversation with TechCabal covers the capital structures that still do not fit African markets, the changing posture of African governments, and why she believes the continent's technology transformation, when it finally arrives, will not be gradual at all.
Originally published by TechCabal.