The Reality Of Infrastructure Investment In Africa Its Attractive

At Africa50, our position is clear. We breathe and live infrastructure investments in Africa. They are transformative, impactful, and profitable. And once you get the formula right, they are replicable and scalable.

The year 2024 was a coming of age for our young institution. After seven years of operation we have achieved significant successes but these are modest compared to the magnitude of the continents infrastructure gap. We have made investments in infrastructure that have brought real benefits to people and economies on the continent, while delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns.

Africas infrastructure needs are huge, and the continent needs bold and inventive solutions to bridge the gap, especially as climate change accelerates and our population increases. Africa50, set up by African countries in response to the African Unions call for an innovative instrument to tackle the infrastructure deficit, is one such solution.

Over the last seven years of operation we have invested in 27 projects across 29 countries, with an aggregated value of over 8bn delivering tangible impact. These projects cut across energy, transport and logistics, information and communications technology, fintech, healthcare, and education. This has been made possible in large part by the increasing number of our country shareholders who trust us to carry out the infrastructure development mandate they have given us.

Today we have 32 African countries, the African Development Bank, and two African central banks as our shareholders. With their support we have mobilised over 1.1bn in capital commitments and catalysed an additional 4.4bn in private sector funding for our projects. This is also the result of our focus on project development, a critical step in building a quality pipeline of investible infrastructure projects, which are currently insufficiently resourced in Africa.