Digitnomics 
Kenya’s experience offers lessons for converting policy ambition into finance-ready infrastructure.
By Byron Mutali
With African leaders reaffirming their ambitions for mineral beneficiation, industrialisation, financial reform and a greater role in shaping emerging-technology rules at the 81st UN General Assembly, attention now turns to implementation. For investors, these priorities point to opportunities, but also to the policy, regulatory and financing conditions that will determine whether they can be realised. The challenge is to translate these ambitions into a pipeline of well-structured, finance-ready projects.
The need is immense. The African Development Bank estimates that Africa requires $181 billion to $221 billion in infrastructure investment each year through 2030. Nearly 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to electricity, while 10–12 million young Africans enter the labour force annually. With more than a third of Sub-Saharan African countries in, or at high risk of, debt distress, much of this investment must come from private and institutional capital.
That capital exists, but it is selective. Agenda 2063, the African Continental Free Trade Area and national development plans show where Africa wants to go. However, investors also need project-level information to commit capital. Investment follows when ambitions become projects with credible revenues, enforceable contracts, allocated risks and a clear path to financial close.
The positions set out at the 81st UNGA have practical consequences for project finance. Financial architecture and debt reforms affect the cost and availability of capital, and government’s capacity to provide guarantees or payment commitments. Beneficiation requires integrated infrastructure: reliable power, transport, water, ports and industrial capacity. Standards governing data, AI, cybersecurity and interoperability will increasingly shape the regulatory environment.
Bankability depends on the wider financial, industrial and regulatory environment and, ultimately, whether a project can generate sufficient long-term revenue to service debt. In my experience, four factors are critical: legal and policy alignment, sound risk allocation, project structure and financial viability.
Many projects stall long before construction because the legal groundwork was never laid. Lenders typically require enforceable security over project assets, step-in rights if the project company defaults, and the ability to convert local currency and repatriate returns. If land, foreign exchange or procurement rules cannot accommodate these requirements, negotiations can drag on for years.
Sponsors and contracting agencies can prevent many of these delays through a legal gap analysis before commissioning feasibility studies. The analysis should be tested against intended lender’s requirements and map all approvals from land acquisition and environmental approvals to planning, regulatory and construction consents in the sequence required for financial close. Where a project is developed under a specific framework, such as a public-private partnership, it should also identify any additional framework-specific approvals and clearances.
Governments can reinforce this work by regularly publishing project pipelines, standardizing contracts and assessing how new policies may affect neighbouring sectors. Kenya’s electric-mobility transition illustrates the importance of policy coordination: EV incentives need to align with import policy, charging infrastructure, financing, electricity regulation and the interests of workers connected to today’s transport market.
Infrastructure projects run for decades, so contracts must anticipate evolving risks and allocate each to the party best placed to manage or mitigate it, with clear consequences and remedies.
Parties should agree on the risk matrix before the term sheet, and address land title and resettlement before financial close. Change-in-law and specified political risks should be allocated explicitly, with the state assuming risks within its control and private parties retaining those they can better manage Stabilization and compensation provisions, supported where appropriate by political risk insurance and World Bank Group or AfDB guarantees, can provide additional protection.
