This article is an edited extract from our June 2026 member newsletter, IFSWF Direct, published here for a wider audience. To receive future editions directly, subscribe here.
From the community: NSIA brings Nigeria’s lawmakers to London
In June, the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) hosted a study tour in London for members of the Nigerian Parliament. Convened by NSIA’s Charlotte Adesiyan and Uduak Ukpeh and held over 8–10 June, the programme — themed “Strengthening the Legal and Governance Mechanisms to Ensure Long-Term Funding and Sustainability of the Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund” — was designed to deepen legislators’ understanding of NSIA’s legal and operational framework and to strengthen their capacity to exercise their oversight responsibilities.
As a member of IFSWF, NSIA invited the Forum to contribute, and we were glad to take part in an exchange of ideas on best practice, transparency and sound governance. It is exactly the kind of peer-to-peer learning the Forum exists to support — and a reminder that the durability of a sovereign fund rests as much on its legal and governance foundations as on its returns. Our thanks to Charlotte, Uduak and the whole NSIA team for the invitation.
Mongolia consolidates its sovereign wealth architecture
Mongolia has taken a significant step in its economic governance. On 27 May 2026, the Cabinet of Mongolia approved a landmark decision to consolidate Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund LLC and Erdenes Mongol LLC, the state mining holding, into a newly formed Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund Corporation. It is a transformational shift: an evolution from a traditional state-owned mining holding structure into a professionally governed sovereign wealth fund aligned with international standards and long-term national development objectives.
"Merging Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund LLC with Erdenes Mongol LLC creates a single, globally connected institution;” said Temuulen Bayaraa, CEO of Chinggis Khaan. “We are building a platform capable of attracting foreign capital, optimising Mongolia's strategic assets, and generating sustainable long-term returns across generations." She continued at the official launch.
As a corporation holding the government's shares in strategically important mining assets, the new institution's mandate centres on professional portfolio and state asset management; strategic investments and co-investment platforms; and capital-market development. Since its establishment, the sovereign wealth fund has recorded an average year-on-year growth rate of approximately 30% while building relationships across the global sovereign investor community, including IFSWF.
The reform also streamlines the former holding structure by dissolving overlapping, debt-financed subsidiaries and reducing administrative costs, thereby fully aligning the organisation with Mongolia's National Wealth Fund Law. It is an encouraging example of a resource-rich economy building durable, globally benchmarked institutions, and we look forward to following its progress.
Ethiopia: EIH ties board pay to performance
Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH), which oversees more than 40 state-owned enterprises, has introduced a performance-linked remuneration framework for the boards of its portfolio companies. The directive replaces guaranteed, flat board payments with a formula that makes pay conditional on three tests: a profitable result, an unqualified external audit opinion, and the timely settlement of dividends. Remuneration is then scored across company, board, and individual performance, with directors measured against 12 key performance indicators — including a minimum of 21 hours of training a year — and capped at 2 concurrent board seats.
EIH frames the reform as a move away from “ceremonial” oversight toward boards that are accountable drivers of value, with cleaner lines between regulatory and commercial roles. For a holding company whose assets are equivalent to roughly a tenth of Ethiopia’s GDP, it is a notable step in governance discipline, and one that will resonate with members wrestling with the same questions.
Designing the future of food: how SWFs are reshaping food-system investment in developing markets
A guest op-ed from EHA Advisory
Food security is increasingly being reframed from a development concern to a source of fiscal risk. This shift is pushing sovereign wealth funds to bring food systems to the core of their investment strategies.
Globally, 1.05 billion tonnes of food were wasted in 2022, while 783 million people were affected by hunger. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest regional food-loss rate, at 23%, with post-harvest grain losses exceeding $4 billion annually. These are losses borne on sovereign balance sheets — widening trade deficits, fuelling inflation, constraining affordability, and compounding the cost of malnutrition. Food-system repair is therefore not just a development challenge, but a fiscal one too.
Despite this urgency, investment has lagged. A questionnaire completed by seven SWFs during our workshop at the IFSWF Annual Meeting last year found that, while 63% already view food and agriculture as a core strategic sector, investment is held back by structural frictions: weak pipelines and policy uncertainty (50%), institutional constraints including mandate flexibility and in-house expertise (38%), and a lack of credible co-investors and long-term financing instruments (50% each). In response, 75% of respondents called for structured co-investment pipelines of sufficient scale, with an equal share asking for tailored financing instruments.
The constraint is not capital but the lack of an investable environment. The system surrounding farms — inadequate storage and logistics, limited processing capacity, and poor aggregation mechanisms — prevents viable production from becoming an investable opportunity that crowds in private capital.
A new approach is emerging among SWFs: systems-first investing. Rather than allocating capital to isolated projects, funds are increasingly targeting the structural bottlenecks that determine whether markets function at all.
The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority’s Presidential Fertiliser Initiative has revived domestic fertiliser blending and distribution, lowering production risk for farmers and improving the commercial case for lenders and value-chain investors.
Rwanda’s Agaciro Development Fund offers another example. By providing storage facilities as equity to its portfolio company, Africa Improved Foods, it attracted grant funding for drying equipment. The result: aflatoxin levels in maize fell from 97% to under 5% in three years; farmers’ incomes rose by 35%; and the company reached profitability by 2022.
What links these approaches is a shift from financing projects to structuring systems. EHA Advisory’s Innovative Collaborative Funding Model formalises this logic by defining the roles, risk positions and return expectations of SWFs, governments, donors and private investors within a single co-investment architecture. Its adoption directly supported the memorandum of understanding signed between Agaciro and USAID’s Hinga Weze programme in 2023 to reduce post-harvest losses in Rwanda.
The next test for sovereign investors is whether they can translate this shift in logic into action at scale. Drawing on these insights, a practical toolkit for SWFs investing in food and agriculture is due to be published ahead of the IFSWF Annual Meeting in Athens.