The new wave of foreign direct investment is abandoning megaprojects for distributed, structural bets that are harder to unwind - and smarter to hold.
By Dishant Shah In 1993, a Zimbabwean engineer applied for a license to build a mobile phone network in his country. His own government spent the...
The continent's investment gap is real - but capital is not what is missing.
By Daki Nkanyane Every society eventually confronts an uncomfortable truth: institutions cannot outgrow the people who build them. Across Africa today, cranes dot urban skylines, fiber-optic...
By Victory Azimih Power is rarely lost first on the battlefield. It is lost in identity, confidence, memory, and long-term intent. Psalm 137 captures this with...
By Lailla Mutajogera Africa’s investment landscape presents a compelling paradox. While Ethiopia surges ahead with breakneck growth rates, South Africa offers the continent’s most sophisticated economy....
By John Kourkoutas When Western executives dismiss Africa as “too hot” for serious business operations, they reveal more about their own biases than they do about...
By Lance Chisue A striking pattern is emerging across Africa’s economic landscape. After decades of fragmented markets and externally oriented trade, the continent is finally turning...
By Gregory September Africa’s largest countries occupy vast expanses of territory. Algeria sprawls across more than 2.3 million square kilometers. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DR...
By Dishant Shah A global consumer goods giant recently withdrew from Nigeria after years of mounting losses. The business press quickly labeled it “another failure in...
By Dishant Shah Development Finance Institutions have long pledged to “de-risk Africa” for private investment. Yet too often, their efforts stall not on the factory floor...
By Victory Azimih A troubling contradiction haunts African development: we discuss building the continent everywhere except where construction actually happens. African leaders, policymakers, and investors shuttle...
By Des H Rikhotso The narrative around African investment has shifted from cautious optimism to calculated urgency. While much of the developed world grapples with demographic...
By Apollo Buregyeya “It is not possible for us to continue importing cement. We have limestone and all the other raw materials. Somebody needs to explain...
By Kelly Mua Kingsly The arithmetic is brutal: a liter of gasoline in many African cities costs roughly what a gallon – nearly four liters –...
By Victory Azimih The question facing Africa today is not whether the continent is politically independent – that battle was won decades ago. The question is...
By John Kourkoutas Corporate boardrooms across the developed world repeat the same tired mantra: African infrastructure challenges. Executives bemoan logistics while the Congo River carries more...
By Kelly Mua Kingsly Africa stands at the precipice of an industrial renaissance. Across the continent, nations are awakening to a powerful truth: true economic sovereignty...
By Wavinya Makai For decades, Africa’s development narrative has been drafted in foreign ministries and multilateral boardrooms. The plot hinges on foreign direct investment, concessional loans,...
By John Kourkoutas In 1880, roughly 90 percent of Africa remained “unclaimed” by European colonial powers. A map from that year shows a continent mostly in...
By Dishant Shah Every conversation about Africa’s economic future eventually circles back to the same question: How do we industrialize at scale, and who leads the...
By Victory Azimih For much of the past half-century, analysts speculated about when Africa would “rise.” That question is now obsolete. The real issue is how...
By Des H. Rikhotso In boardrooms from London to Singapore, Africa is often discussed in binaries: risk versus reward, chaos versus opportunity, poverty versus potential. Yet...
By Dishant Shah When Ethiopia and Djibouti inaugurated the 752-kilometer (467-mile) Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in 2018, it was heralded as a bold infrastructure bet. Today,...
By Davida Ademuyiwa For more than a century, the physical architecture of the African economy was not designed for African prosperity. It was engineered for export...
By Danilo Desiderio The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has become the most celebrated economic initiative on the continent. Leaders, policymakers, economists, and business associations...
By Gregory Simpkins As written on our pages recently, Ethiopia officially inaugurated the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in a landmark ceremony led by Prime Minister...
By Apollo Buregyeya When the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) began generating electricity in 2023, it marked more than an engineering triumph – it signaled a...
By Dishant Shah Africa feeds the world – and yet, it struggles to feed itself efficiently. Consider this: the average journey of food across the African...
By Danilo Desiderio In a continent brimming with potential, infrastructure promises progress. Yet too often, grand projects fail to deliver on their lofty ambitions – becoming...
By Davida Ademuyiwa Africa is no longer on the periphery of global geopolitics. Over the past two decades, it has emerged as a pivotal arena for...
By Dishant Shah Across Africa, cities are far more than clusters of people and buildings – they are dynamic engines of transformation, turning raw potential into...
By Davida Ademuyiwa Africa is no longer a frontier market whispered about in boardrooms – it is a dynamic, data-backed investment powerhouse ready for the global...
By Farhia Noor In 2055, I didn’t dream of Africa’s future – I stepped into it. What I saw was not the continent of yesterday’s headlines...
By Dishant Shah Picture a map of Africa speckled with 16 landlocked countries – stretching from Mali and Niger in the west to Uganda and Ethiopia...
By Jean Claude Niyomugabo Africa’s relative underdevelopment compared to other regions of the world is a complex issue rooted in a combination of historical, geographical, political,...
By Jean Claude Niyomugabo Africa needs infrastructure. Africa needs development. But at what cost? If we depend on Europe to build our roads, railways, and cities,...
