Despite having a potential $4 trillion in available domestic capital, Africa faces a persistent infrastructure deficit that is hampering its economic integration and industrialisation. To accelerate the delivery of productive investments, the continent is striving to overcome structural barriers by focusing on major strategic projects and new financing initiatives.
Despite possessing substantial domestic capital, estimated at nearly $4 trillion according to the Africa Finance Corporation’s 2026 report, Africa continues to grapple with a massive infrastructure deficit, costing between $170 billion and $221 billion annually. This shortage of critical infrastructure—including insufficient roads, ports, railways, and energy networks—hampers the continent’s ambitions for industrialisation and regional integration. To address these severe gaps, several key initiatives are underway. Flagship projects like the Lobito railway corridor, which connects Angola, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the port of Lamu in Kenya, and the Julius Nyerere hydroelectric dam in Tanzania, aim to turn this situation around.
The Africa We Build Summit is a profound opportunity to turn potential into action by forging partnerships, unlocking finance, and building continental synergy. Treating infrastructure as a stand-alone asset delivers little or no impact. Moving priority infrastructure from inception to tangible outcomes across Africa requires an integrated approach, linking roads, railways, ports, power, and digital networks to industrial parks and micro, small, and medium enterprises .
Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora – Kenya
The implementation of these projects faces major obstacles. Some argue that a portion of local savings remains tied up in sovereign bonds, whilst the lack of bankable projects, technical studies and solid guarantees is holding back investment. The continent allocates only 4% of its GDP to infrastructure, compared with 14% in China, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB), a shortfall that costs nearly two percentage points of annual growth and limits industrial competitiveness.
We need to look at infrastructure as part of an overall driver to industrialisation, so you can’t look at infrastructure as a stand-alone asset. You have to think of it in terms of trying to stimulate industrialisation. We have a lot of capital in Africa. We now need more policy action focused on the capital markets. This is your DFIs, your multilateral finance institutions, that are now very active in trying to mobilise capital around undeveloped projects on the continent.
President and CEO of Nyanza Light Metals – Zimbabwe
To meet this challenge, African governments and continental institutions are turning to innovative mechanisms. On 14 February 2026, at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, heads of state launched the African Infrastructure Financing Facility (AIFF), designed to accelerate the preparation and financing of priority cross-border projects linked to Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area. In parallel, the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions (AAMFI), with over $70 billion in assets, aims to pool risks in order to attract more private and institutional capital.
We are looking at how to integrate various infrastructure projects, because, I will tell you, that corridor does not start at the ports. It doesn’t start at our airports. It actually starts at the farm. It starts at the factory, and it starts at the production centres. It is how you connect production centres to markets that is what is important. That is when, now, you have a corridor that is complete, a corridor that gives value, a corridor that moves you from rhetoric to deliveries, because what we need is not political statements. It’s not about rhetoric. It’s about delivery. But this requires bold and sometimes uncomfortable decisions.
Secretary to the Cabinet responsible for the National Treasury and Economic Planning – Kenya
The primary challenge has shifted from a purely financial one to a structural one: ensuring effective investment. The private sector, particularly via Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), is now essential for modernizing infrastructure, following the models of nations like Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Morocco. With the advent of the AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area), these investments must strategically evolve into regional corridors. This transformation is critical for sustainably bolstering African trade, industry, and employment, thereby presenting the continent with an unparalleled chance to convert its inherent potential into concrete, sustainable growth.
