Islamic finance in Africa

This is an exploratory research where the main objective is to discuss the progress of Islamic finance in Africa by shedding light into some of the pertinent challenges facing the development of Islamic finance in the region. The findings of this chapter reveal that though over the past years, there is exponential growth of Islamic finance in Africa, it is found that takaful and Islamic capital markets need to be further developed in the region while focusing on resolving the challenges facing the development of Islamic finance in the region. To resolve the challenges identified in this chapter, collective action could be taken by having a unified effort among all stakeholders of Islamic finance in the region and even multilateral institutions like IsDB can also play a key role in eliminating them. Likewise, efforts from the stakeholders of Islamic finance especially from the governments of the individual countries are also required to resolve the issues facing the development of Islamic finance in the domestic markets. It is anticipated that the outcome of the research would assist policymakers to understand the key challenges facing the development of Islamic finance in Africa with ways to overcome them.