World
United Kingdom Pursuing Investment Projects in Africa
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
At least, during the past few years, including the COVID-19 pandemic period, the United Kingdom has consistently followed its planned agenda with African countries. The UK has an agenda and has decisively been implementing all aspects. It describes “Africa as a reliable partner” during its historic UK-Africa Investment Summit held in January 2020.
Monitoring developments after the summit, despite the COVID-19 pandemic that has caused disruptions and lockdowns including in Africa, the United Kingdom has ultimately achieved some successes in Africa. With our broad and random research, we have noticed different priorities – all of which are supporting and strengthening economic partnerships in a number of countries on the continent. The significance of these is to help unlock opportunity, spread prosperity and thus transform lives in Africa.
Judging from our monitoring research indicates that the visible practical steps aimed at building a more resilient continent, it is simultaneously helping to lay the foundation for sustainable future relations. The United Kingdom has displayed, not only heightened interests but also practically delivered on its plans to engage Africa.
As the UK Minister for Africa, MP Vicky Ford, explained, “the overarching aim of all this work is to try to help, build the resilience of countries and to help them have much more durable prosperity. For far too long, African countries have endured the fallout from global forces outside their control and the compelling task is to build more sustainable economies in African countries.”
Take back nearly a decade and a half ago, the 2008 Global Economic Crisis, Africa suffered contagion from what happened in the global financial markets. And the African businesses and African governments were left with holes in their balance sheets from plummeting commodity prices.
“And right now, since Putin’s war against Ukraine, we’ve seen the most dramatic rise in global food, fuel and fertilizer prices in recent history. The consequences of Russia’s illegal aggression are hitting the poorest the hardest, and many of those most exposed are in Africa,” she underscored this undeniable fact – the level of consequences and impact on Africa as a result of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine since late February.
For the past few months this year, African countries have complained about imports of Russian grain or fertilizers. African leaders have understood that it is Russia’s illegal blockade that is preventing Ukrainian grain from leaving that country, and it’s that blockade that is hurting global supplies.
So, time and time again, African countries find themselves buffeted by these global forces and, therefore, the United Kingdom has set a priority to help African countries to insulate themselves against these pressures. Under the current circumstances, what has Russia done to help Africa, it only contributes to deepening social dissatisfaction throughout Africa.
Over the past 12 months, we have calculated or tallied, at least, 14 African countries visited by the UK Minister for Africa, MP Vicky Ford. In most of these African countries, the partnership agenda is, in practical terms, working. It, at the same time, shows a huge difference between rhetoric and what it takes to deliver all that is listed on agenda with Africa. From our monitoring, we can simply say that the United Kingdom is capitalizing on many qualities that make the continent such an attractive destination for investment and for new business there.
On our part, we have discovered a number of positive impacts of the UK’s policy initiatives. For example, in Kenya in East Africa, a British investment of £75 million, through TradeMark East Africa, has eased trade by improving the capacity and efficiency of the Kenyan Ports Authority.
Back 10 years ago, before this investment, it took 10 days on average for goods arriving at Mombasa Port to then leave the port. That turnaround time is now just three and a half days. More goods moving more quickly means that the costs of trade are dramatically reduced, helping trade from Kenya, but also helping those who are importing into this country.
British investors are strategically leveraging unto trade platforms, working to support the creation of an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) because trade integration is such a powerful tool to accelerate economic growth, create employment and alleviate or reduce poverty.
The United Kingdom has already trained over 190 African trade negotiators. It is further working closely with the Secretariat to cut red tape on cross-border trade and in March 2022, Minister Vicky Ford and AfCFTA’s Executive Head Wamkele Mene in London announced a package of assistance to get the agreement up and running.
Concretely, it was the launching of a pilot project or programme – the Standards Partnership programme in Ghana and Rwanda. This programme will strengthen supply chains, and reduce barriers to trade by helping both countries meet global standards and regulations.
Then, there’s British International Investment (BII) – the UK’s Development Finance Institution – this continues to be a core part of the economic partnership, offering honest, reliable alternative to financing, to other forms of financing that may come with more strings attached.
Under the G7 presidency, BII pledged to work with its G7 counterparts and multilateral development banks to ramp up the volume of investment into the African private sector – with a collective target of a massive $80 billion available till the year 2027.
BII will target 30% of all new investments into green projects in developing countries over the next 5 years. This will make it one of the world’s largest climate finance providers to African economies.
In Senegal, there is a noticeable transformative impact of the recent BII partnership to expand Dakar’s port infrastructure. This will be Senegal’s largest ever onshore foreign direct investment and will help to drive free trade and to drive economic growth.
In Tanzania, there is also what is referred to as AgDevCo, a UK-funded agribusiness investor. It has transformed ‘Africado’ into a thriving business. They are currently exporting avocados to many British supermarkets. In doing this, it is boosting the livelihood of some 2,000 local smallholders.
Women’s entrepreneurship is a special priority to promote women’s empowerment and support their roles in society. Nigeria, located in West Africa, there are positive results as a result of the impact of £70 million invested in women entrepreneurs and their small businesses.
Our systematic monitoring further shows that the Malindi Solar in Kenya, East Africa’s largest solar plant, was built by the UK firm Globeleq using £32 million of BII financing. It is the sort of green investment British partners need to transition into renewable energy and help them to reduce their exposure to the increasingly unpredictable hydrocarbon markets.
All of these examples proved that development finance is a win-win for African countries and for those who conduct business there. The development finance is not enough, though. But these are very impressive and modest by the range of impactful projects the export credit agency, UKEF has supported across the continent.
UKEF’s very flexible financing rules recognize the global nature of modern supply chains. This flexibility has played a significant role in encouraging oversea buyers to source from UK businesses, whilst also building capacity and creating jobs within developing countries. British companies who use UKEF find these development benefits offer a major competitive advantage when bidding for contracts compared to some of the other external competitors.
Referencing back in January, the launched Growth Gateway is a new business support service to expand trade between the UK and Africa. So far, the Growth Gateway has connected more than 150 African and UK businesses. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has expressed readiness to build on this workable economic diplomacy with Africa.
The UK will be collaborating with a newly launched IFC facility to develop more local currency bonds and support its Financial Sector Deepening Platform (FSDA) in expanding to 45 African countries. It is forming regulatory partnerships, such as the Mauritius Africa Fintech Festival and the Bank of England’s partnership with Morocco’s Bank Al-Maghrib.
Our research shows that 112 African companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) are worth more than £125 billion. Trade UK-Africa trade is approximately £48 billion. It sets a target of mobilizing more sustainable finance, which would include 600 British companies across the continent by CDC Group.
In summary, all these recounted in this article demonstrate the United Kingdom’s achievements and further its practical commitment to partner with African countries in order to drive growth, trade and investment opportunities all across the continent. African leaders and governments and the private sector operators are continuously embracing these efforts. Creating a resilient future through sustainable economic growth is at the heart of the United Kingdom.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
One year after launching a continental initiative designed to make excellence in public governance the foundation of a new drive to transform Africa, LEAD, the Africa CEO Forum’s pan-African leadership programme, takes stock of its first cohort and announces the launch of its second class. Built around a community of senior public decision-makers committed to modernising the state and to the continent’s digital transformation, this new cohort gathers for three days, from 28 to 30 August 2026, on the campus of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Rabat, Morocco.
A second cohort that confirms the programme’s durability
For its second class, LEAD brings together 50 fellows, senior public decision-makers engaged in the design and implementation of the continent’s economic and social policies. Over three days, participants take part in collective and collaborative working sessions, peer exchanges and meetings with figures from the public, business and academic spheres, in order to compare their practices and build shared responses to the major challenges of governance.
Speakers include Mehdi Jomaa, former Head of Government of Tunisia, Donald Kaberuka, Managing Partner & Founder, SouthBridge Group, and former President of the African Development Bank, Serge Ekue, President of the West African Development Bank (BOAD), Sanjay Jain, co-creator of India Stack and Director of Digital Public Infrastructure, Gates Foundation, and Mauricio Cardenas, Professor of Professional Practice in Global Leadership, Columbia SIPA, and former Finance Minister of Colombia (2012-2018).
They share their reform experience, their public policy trade-offs and their view of continental priorities. Throughout the programme, the cohort benefits from the dedicated support of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Asafo & Co, BOAD, BCG and the African Development Bank, LEAD partners that have chosen to invest in the transformation of African public action.
LEAD, a pan-African community serving public action
Created by the AFRICA CEO FORUM, LEAD is a leadership programme whose ambition is to reposition Africa’s administrative elite as a driver of reform, of performance and of dialogue with all the continent’s stakeholders.
Designed for senior African public decision-makers, LEAD sets out to build a lasting community of public officials able to share their experience, compare their practices and build common solutions to the major economic, technological and institutional transformations under way in Africa. That community is structured around three pillars: modernizing the state, improving public services, and strengthening cooperation between governments, development institutions and private-sector players.
From fellows to alumni: a long-term initiative
Made up of 36 fellows drawn from a range of administrations and institutions and representing 24 countries across the continent, LEAD’s first cohort demonstrated the quality and the potential of this community from its very first year. In less than twelve months, six of its members have taken a significant step forward: two have been appointed ministers, two have moved into strategic positions at the highest level of the state and two have been promoted to chief executive roles. These moves, which account for 16.7% of the first class, show the role LEAD plays as an accelerator of impact within African administrations.
By bringing together a new cohort of fellows every year, each of them joining the LEAD alumni community, the initiative follows a long-term trajectory: in time, to unite several hundred African public decision-makers around a shared culture of transparency, performance and regional cooperation.
A first year devoted to public service and digital public infrastructure
Throughout the year, the fellows devoted their work to strengthening African public action, to make excellence in public governance a central lever of transformation. An awareness campaign, run as part of Africa Public Service Day, brought to light those who, within the continent’s administrations and institutions, are concretely transforming public policy and improving the services offered to citizens.
Members of the cohort also took part in a special round table held in Kigali during the ACF 2026, in order to carry their thinking to a wider community of public and private leaders. That forum reinforced LEAD’s role as a platform for dialogue between the administrative elite and the continent’s economic players. Digital public infrastructure (DPI) formed the main thread of this first year of work.
Discussions covered issues at the heart of the digital sovereignty of African states: digital identity, payments, secure data exchange, interoperability, governance and the protection of citizens. This work examined the conditions under which African states are developing, in some cases, and can develop, in others, shared, open infrastructure robust enough to improve the quality of public services while supporting local innovation and preserving the capacity of public authorities to set the rules of the game.
A white paper to move from consuming technology to creating value
This year of work concludes with the publication, in collaboration with BCG, LEAD’s Knowledge Partner, of a white paper on Africa’s place in the digital economy and in artificial intelligence. With the digital economy still accounting for around 5% of African GDP, against close to 15% worldwide, the paper calls on the continent to shift from a logic of technology consumption to one of value creation.
The white paper identifies three structuring priorities for African public actors:
- Building shared digital infrastructure that serves as the backbone of public services and private innovation.
- Pooling investment in order to reach critical mass and avoid the fragmentation of efforts across the continent.
- Favouring open and interoperable architectures, with trust and governance built in by design, so as to protect citizens while stimulating the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The white paper is available here to all public decision-makers, technical partners and institutions concerned.
“LEAD’s first cohort confirms a simple conviction: Africa already has the women and men capable of profoundly transforming public action. Our responsibility, either with our partners, is to give them, at pan-African level, a space in which to compare experience, build common solutions and bring forward a new generation of public policy. With this second cohort, we want to accelerate the move from ambition to execution, in particular on digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence, two decisive issues for sovereignty, for the effectiveness of the state and for value creation across the continent,” says Amir Ben Yahmed, President of the Africa CEO Forum.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Africa is set to make history as it hosts the World Public Summit for the first time, with Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, welcoming global leaders and changemakers from July 29–30, 2026, for the landmark gathering under the theme “New World: Africa in Shaping a Shared Future.”
The inaugural African edition of the World Public Summit marks a significant milestone in the continent’s growing role in shaping international dialogue on governance, sustainable development, human-centred leadership and global cooperation.
Hosted by the World Peoples Assembly in partnership with African and international organisations, the summit will convene government officials, diplomats, business leaders, academics, journalists, youth representatives, civil society organisations and cultural leaders from across Africa and around the world.
According to Andrey Belyaninov, General Secretary of the World Peoples Assembly, “the Summit is not just a meeting—it is a space for unity. A space where the ‘values that unite us’ come to life: respect for people, openness to the world, responsibility for the future, and a commitment to creation.
“Today, we understand more clearly than ever: the future cannot be built alone. It is born in dialogue, in trust, in the ability to listen to one another and to act together.”
The programme begins on July 29 with a series of high-level roundtables and expert discussions covering Pan-African economic integration, civil society, education, scientific cooperation, cultural diplomacy and humanitarian partnerships.
The opening plenary, “Values, Development and Partnership as the Basis of a Sustainable and Just World,” will explore how African values—including Ubuntu—can help shape a more inclusive and sustainable global future. Discussions will also focus on youth leadership, innovation, civil society, ethical AI, public initiatives and international partnerships.
The summit will also showcase Africa’s creativity and innovation through the “Innovations for the Future” exhibition, the contemporary African art exhibition “Unity,” and the international exhibition “The World Paints Happiness.”
Another featured initiative is “The Zambezi River: Economy, Society, Soul,” an international interdisciplinary project exploring the river’s socioeconomic importance across Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, highlighting the shared heritage and development potential of one of Africa’s most important waterways.
The event will conclude with the adoption of the African Communiqué, reflecting the summit’s shared vision for stronger international cooperation, sustainable development and people-centred leadership.
Tsegaye Chama, General Secretary of the Global Black Centre, promised that, “The Summit will be delivered with exceptional distinction, reflecting the magnitude and spirit of the World Peoples Assembly. It embodies a unity that is not transactional, but purposeful and conscious, a unity that shapes new contours for a world that works for all peoples of the World.”
As delegates prepare to arrive in Addis Ababa, anticipation continues to build for what promises to be one of Africa’s most significant international gatherings of 2026—one that will place the continent firmly at the centre of global conversations about the future.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria regained its position as Africa’s leading destination for equity startup investment in the first half of 2026, raising $214 million in equity financing and a total of $254 million across equity and debt, according to the latest Africa: The Big Deal report.
The report, titled H1 2026: Mapping the Money, showed that Nigeria ranked second on the continent in total funding, behind Egypt, which attracted $327 million, while Kenya and South Africa followed with $126 million and $83 million, respectively.
However, the report noted that Egypt’s top position was largely driven by a single fundraising by electric mobility company Spiro, which secured $327 million, including $270 million in equity and $57 million in debt. Excluding debt financing, Nigeria emerged as Africa’s largest equity funding market in the first six months of the year.
According to the breakdown by Africa: The Big Deal, Nigeria’s equity funding of $214 million was higher than Egypt’s $183 million, while South Africa and Kenya attracted $66 million and $46 million, respectively.
Beyond funding value, Nigeria also led the continent in the number of startups that raised at least $100,000 during the review period, reclaiming the top spot after what the report described as an “underwhelming” second half of 2025.
The publication observed that Nigeria’s fundraising performance has remained relatively stable over the past few years and exceeded the $250 million mark for the first time since 2022, pointing to renewed investor confidence in the country’s startup ecosystem.
It also found that while the Big Four startup markets—Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa—continued to dominate Africa’s investment landscape, their combined share of total funding stood at 58 per cent in the first half of 2026.
“Zooming back on the Big Four (110 out of 190 $100k+ deals, i.e. 58%), Nigeria is head and shoulders above its peers, with Egypt and Kenya almost tying, and South Africa in fourth position again,” the report noted.
The report highlighted contrasting performances among the continent’s largest startup ecosystems. While Nigeria and Egypt maintained strong funding momentum, Kenya recorded its weakest funding performance since early 2021 after a strong second half of 2025, and South Africa failed to attract $100 million in funding during the period despite leading the continent a year earlier.
Africa: The Big Deal also noted a broader shift in investor behaviour, with funding increasingly concentrated in larger transactions while early-stage investments continued to decline. According to the publication, the drop in smaller funding rounds reflects growing concerns about limited capital available for early-stage startups across Africa.
