Scarcely any head of state in the Global North has engaged as intensively with Africa as King Haakon VIII. When he succeeded his father to the throne when Harald V died on August 28, 2026, Haakon, born in 1973, brought with him a bachelor in politics at the Berkeley University in California and a Master’s in Development Studies from the illustrious London School of Economics.

For years, King Haakon has been playing a role both for Norway and generally in international development policy. In 2003, he was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). In this capacity, he traveled to various African countries to support projects.

In 2001, together with his wife, Queen Mette-Marit, he founded the Humanitarian Fund of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess (Kronprinsparets Humanitære Fond) which funded some international health and education projects in its first decade, but was refocused in 2011 onto domestic programs.

That is the context in which King Haakon undertook several widely noted journeys to Africa:

• In 2022, he accompanied the Swedish Crown Princess Victoria on her trip to Kenya. The focus was on projects to combat plastic pollution at waste disposal facilities outside Nairobi, as well as the Mikoko Pamoja project in Kwale, which is dedicated to the protection of mangrove forests.

• In 2017, during his trip to Liberia, the emphasis was on local communities and post-crisis reconstruction.

• In 2014, during his assignment in Tanzania, he concentrated on poverty reduction, women’s rights, and healthcare systems.

• In 2013, this was already the purpose of his trip to Zambia.

• In Botswana (2009), Burundi (2007), and in Sierra Leone (2005), the focus was on sustainable governance, democratization and young entrepreneurs.

As is common in Europe today, the Norwegian monarch largely limits himself to constitutional and ceremonial duties. However, as should be clear from the above commitment, King Haakon sees himself as part of a broad spectrum of development policy activities that Norway has pursued for many decades and the trajectory of which he can most probably help shape – away from the public eye.

Today, the country — with a population of just 5.6 million — is at the forefront of international development policy, a domain that is facing unprecedented levels of criticism. First, it is a bugbear of the current White House incumbent who evidently believes it serves no national purpose. Second, there are the many well-intentioned private charity projects from the Global North that potentially cause more harm than good. In the best-case scenario, they cause little damage.

With the coronation of King Haakon, we find it an apt moment to ask behind the paywall: Can the Norwegian model serve as a blueprint for modern development policy? Suffice it to say at the outset: Norway integrates its various development policy institutions in a way that few other countries do. The result is a remarkable, cohesive strategy.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• The pillars on which Norwegian development policy rests

• The direction in which Norwegian development policy is evolving

• What modern development policy can look like

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On July 1^st, 2026, at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference, former German chancellor Olaf Scholz and former Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla launched something called the South-North Commission on Development, which the German development aid ministry (BMZ) inducted immediately into its development assistance program.

Note the word order. Willy Brandt’s original 1980 report, the template every “Global X” commission since has consciously or unconsciously copied, was called “North-South: A Program for Survival.”

Forty-six years on, the sequence has been deliberately inverted – from North-South to South-North. Nobody at the launch needed it explained. That single act of flipping the two adjectives either side of the hyphen is a tidy symptom of a much larger problem: The vocabulary we inherited from the Cold War for describing the world’s economic geography no longer describes the world.

Third World, a buzzword out of fashion

It is worth remembering why the vocabulary changed in the first place. “Third World” implied a ranking, not a geography. This term was coined by French demographer Alfred Sauvy in his article “Trois Mondes, une planète” (Three Worlds, One Planet), published in the weekly L’Observateur on August 14, 1952. He wrote:

Car, enfin, ce tiers-monde ignoré, exploité, méprisé comme le tiers état, veut, lui aussi, être quelque chose.

This ignored third world, ignored, exploited, despised like the third estate, desires, too, to be something.

In doing so, Sauvy referred to the “tiers état”, the Third Estate in the rigidly structured society of the three feudal estates of pre-revolutionary France (nobles, churchmen, and all the others) which abbot Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836) summarized in his three famous questions:

1. What is the Third Estate? Everything.

2. What has it been so far in the political order? Nothing.

3. What does he ask for? To become something.

The term Third World subsequently gained popularity through French essayist Frantz Fanon, famous for his anti-colonial book “Les Damnés de la Terre”, “The Wretched of the Earth”. From 1943 onwards, he fought as a volunteer in the French army, risking his life for the liberation of France. However, after the war, he lamented (like many a black GI) that he continued to face “ethnic discrimination and petty nationalism.” In Fanon’s thought, the term “Tiers-Monde” denoted a political demand for the emancipation of the oppressed colonies.

No one speaks of the “Third World” any longer. Instead, other terms have gained currency over time. In multilateral institutions and development policy, “Sub-Saharan Africa” remains in vogue today. This term not only divides the African continent into two artificial halves but also hinders Africa’s development.

Discover why this artificial division hinders development, prevents serious policymaking, does not reflect reality, and is an obstacle to investment.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• Which coinages are misleading

• Global South, MENA , Sub-Saharan Africa or something else?

• Why outdated classifications hinder investment

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Do you remember the year 2001? That was the year when China was accepted into WTO. And the year also marked a profound turning point in global economic history. Jian Zemin was China’s president. The talks with the World Trade Organization (WTO) had begun back in 1986. At that time, the WTO was still known as GATT. And back then, the Chinese president was Li Xiannian.

The official admissions ceremony took place in Doha on November 10, 2001. The pen and the wooden gavel used to seal the accession are now housed in the National Museum in Beijing as symbols of a historic feat. Rightly so. No event has accelerated China’s economic rise as much as did its membership of the WTO.

High tariffs on Chinese goods in the US were eliminated overnight. Legal certainty increased, markets opened up, and China swiftly emerged as the world’s factory. The accession to WTO was when China set out to become a global economic power.

From flyover to factory-gone

From then on, Chinese goods flooded the American market. Their manufacturers drove thousands of US companies to the wall. Entire regions in the USA lost their economic livelihood within a few years. The “flyover states” of the Midwest, in particular, became the “factory-gone” states – the rust belt was born.

Today, Europe is in danger of finding itself in the same situation as the USA 25 years ago. Only now, China no longer produces cheap household goods, electronics, textiles, and toys. Instead, China has brought large parts of the European solar industry to its knees and is threatening the automotive industry, mechanical engineering, the chemical industry, and electrical engineering.

So, what does any of this have to do with Africa, you are probably now asking?

An awful lot if we cast a glance at the IMF? The Fund still treats China as an “emerging market and developing economy” (EMDE). Indeed, at the WTO, China is very careful to maintain its status as a “developing country,” as this offers an invaluable advantage in matters of tariffs and trade.

We consider the IMF’s country classification to be both outdated and counter-productive. This is not merely a problem for statisticians and econometricians. It is a problem with far-reaching consequences for the post-globalization economy, and especially for African countries.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• How the IMF arrives at its classification

• Why China clings to its WTO status as a “developing” country

• And what this issue has to do with Africa

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We evidently misjudged a particular trend. Like many other observers, we assumed that China’s economic commitment to Africa was declining. This assessment was based, first, on the ostensible fact that Chinese infrastructure investors are less visible on the continent (though such empirical findings are merely anecdotal). Second, it was grounded in the view that China is scaling back its overseas activities overall. The conclusion drawn was that this must necessarily apply to Africa as well.

Last week, we stumbled upon a finding from the research department of Attijariwafabank in Casablanca. And we surprised to read:

“Chinese investment in Africa under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reached $33.5 bn in H1-26, representing a 254% YoY increase. As a result, Africa accounted for 67% of China’s global BRI investments, underscoring the continent’s growing strategic importance in the reshaping of global supply chains and trade routes.”

The days of the Belt and Road Initiative are over

These figures show that we naively thought the mainstream assessments were credible — a cardinal error, in fact, for any critical observer or analyst.

Thus sobered, we decided to try and get to the bottom of the matter and dig through original documents and source statistics to find out what the actual situation regarding Chinese engagement in Africa is.

Our key finding is that the Belt and Road Initiative is no longer a helpful guide to understanding Chinese engagement in Africa. The results of our extensive research reveal even more surprises than the figures cited by Attijariwafabank. At the same time, we have identified profound changes that investors from Europe and the USA should also keep an eye on.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• What China’s Africa strategy looks like today

• What this means for investors from the Global North

• Which disturbing trend we assessed correctly

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The fact that Aliko Dangote plans to build a second refinery in Kenya — likely near the northern port city of Lamu — is already paying off for the Nigerian entrepreneur. The proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day facility is evidently attracting interest from institutional investors in Kenya, even before a single concrete step regarding the refinery’s construction has been done.

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The US attacks on Iran have precipitated four months characterized by extremely volatile oil prices as opposed to the gradual fall in the price per barrel seen before the first bombs fell. Contracts for North Sea Brent crude—a key benchmark for the markets—surged to over $120 per barrel in the spring and fell to around $72 per barrel by early July. It is currently trading at $86.

The war has also sparked changes in the price of oil-related products such as fertilizers. The key cause has been the impassability of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on oil-extracting and oil-refining infrastructure in the Gulf of Arabia. This has come on the back of several years of the Russian attempt to invade Ukraine and the impact that has had on fertilizer and gain supplies.

Commentators have on several occasions pointed to the scenarios the double conflict creates for countries in Africa. One of those scenarios centers around the benefits the rise in the price of oil has for the African oil producing countries. We take a closer look at the evidence for this. We hope you aren’t afraid of charts and tables.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• Why some large oil exporting countries are large importers

• Absurd trades around African oil

• Why Nigerian oil has only a partial connection to Nigeria

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The IMF apparently had good news for Africa in July. Economic growth is expected to remain high in 2026 and 2027, at least as far as sub-Saharan Africa is concerned.

Unfortunately, the IMF still divides the African continent into two parts. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt are for some unknown reason grouped with the Middle East. The rest is designated as Sub-Saharan Africa. This is a division of the continent as if the Ottoman Empire still existed, although it ended more than 100 years ago, in November 1922, or, for that matter, as if we were still dealing with the ancient Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates of pre-Medieval times.

A year ago, the IMF expected growth in Sub-Saharan Africa to accelerate from 4.0% in 2025 to 4.3% in 2026. The July 2026 Update shows the region did better than that: Growth in 2025 is now estimated to have been 4.5%. But the needle for the 2026 forecast has not moved: it remains lodged at 4.3%, unchanged from a year earlier, and the Fund is explicit that the war in the Middle East is the reason the region isn’t making greater gains compared to its strong 2025 base.

For the global economy, the IMF expects growth to slow from 3.5% in 2025 to 3.0% this year. In Sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, growth will decelerate only slightly, from 4.5% last year to 4.3% this year. However, the world economic upturn in 2027 will be more dynamic, with the growth rate rising by 40 basis points to 3.4%, compared to Sub-Saharan Africa, for which the IMF expects an increase of only 20 basis points to 4.5%.

So, is the situation in Africa actually looking good? The slump — caused primarily by the Iran war — affects Africa less severely than the rest of the world, and the continent is participating in the upswing nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the situation is not quite as simple as it might seem to be. In fact, the figures in the statistics mask a trend that deeply concerns us.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• The profound changes for Africa in just one year

• Which countries benefit from the Iran war and which do not

• What Africa has in common with Gulliver

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Have you ever asked yourself why African cities, with a few exceptions, lack the hundreds of residential high-rises that typify Asian or South American cities? In other words, why is it that in Africa, where urbanization is progressing faster than in other continents, the housing is not growing ‘upward’?

One could put the question differently: Where does everybody live? And even ask: Does the notion of ‘urban sprawl’ make any sense when the distances the sprawl covers are so immense, and cities consist mainly of sprawl.

A simple answer would be: There is definitely not enough housing in the first place. And the situation is likely to deteriorate further as time goes on. That housing crisis is primarily driven by two inter-related factors: rapid urbanization and a population explosion, the latter being something that rarely gets talked about. We will outline those two factors without being overly analytical, as this will give us a better understanding of what is perhaps a symptom but one that itself in fact becoming an illness.

High population growth

To address urbanization first: The latest World Bank report shows Sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population is growing at about 4.5% per year, far faster than that for the global urban population growth rate. At that pace, the urban population roughly doubles in about 16 years if sustained.

A very large percentage of that increase will be accounted for by people leaving a subsistence existence in a rural area because they hope to find better opportunities in the cities. And this already impacts the housing situation: On arrival, often as good as penniless, if they are lucky they can stay with relatives. If they are not, they have to build their own accommodation in one of the countless shantytowns or live outdoors. Many camp under bridges, for example… They do not have access to fresh water, electricity, healthcare – or protection against the elements.

What is more, the OECD projection is that Africa’s urban population will double from currently about 700 million to 1.4 billion by 2050. That implies an average addition of roughly 25–30 million urban residents per year over the next quarter-century. The continent is moving from roughly the mid-40% urban today toward a majority-urban future, with some estimates putting Africa above 50% urban by the mid-2030s and around 60% by 2050.

So, the next question, and from the point of view of urban planners and policymakers the critical question is: Where will those people live and who will provide the infrastructure?

This is doubly poignant, as economic growth to date has not translated into adequate infrastructure and housing, spelling a double challenge, tackling the past and the future. All of which also spells a huge financial challenge. And one that will need private investment on a massive scale if it is to be overcome.

Huge investment opportunities on the horizon

Meaning that instead of being pessimistic we could write: The rapid growth of urbanization in Africa signifies an investment opportunity. Only last year, for example, the Ethiopian Minister of Urban Development and Infrastructure, Ms. Chaltu Sani Ibrahim, called for more public/private partnerships, with some 90,000 new houses being built, but with estimates suggesting somewhere around 500,000 housing units are needed at present, with 650,000 households on waiting lists.

If we take the annual growth rate of 25-30 million persons p.a., that is, if extrapolated to over four years, more than what the entire Indian urban housing program (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana [the Prime Minister’s Housing Scheme]-Urban or PMAY-U for short) envisages, namely approximately 21.8 million housing units.

PMAY-U itself is already an immense, largest-of-its-kind-ever undertaking coordinated between central and state governments and run through a credit system, the Credit Risk Guarantee Fund Trust (CRGFT) which provides credit risk guarantees on affordable housing loans from Banks/Housing Finance Companies (HFCs)/Primary Lending Institutions (PLIs) to Economically Weaker Section (EWS)/Low Income Group(LIG) segments for construction/purchase of their first home.

The sheer scale of the bureaucracy required is mind-boggling. The project is essentially designed to get the poor into owner-occupied dwellings. The Indian government states: “Families belonging to EWS/LIG/Middle Income Group (MIG) segments having no pucca house anywhere in the country are eligible to purchase or construct a house under PMAY-U 2.0.”

The biggest cities in Africa

If Africa were to adopt something on a similar scale to PMAY-U, it would only cover the first four years of the next quarter of a century in Africa. Again, take the example of Addis Ababa as mentioned above: The 2025 urban-agglomeration style estimates compiled using the UN World Urbanization Prospects framework place Addis Ababa’s metropolitan area, which is currently home to a population of about 6.7 million, only 10^th in the Top Ten list of African ‘metropolitan areas:

The Top Twenty list would continue as follows, and contain a few names that may surprise readers:

One big surprise is that Abuja, Nigeria, is not included. That is simply because the official municipal area has a population of ‘only’ about 2 million (the urban agglomeration would see it enter the table in 11^th.) What is less surprising is that by comparison, Europe (incl. Istanbul) has only nine metropolitan agglomerations on this scale… and the USA 11 such conurbations. And remember: Each of the next 25 years will see a total influx into cities on a par with Shanghai’s total population.

African national budgets already financially strained will face a challenge quite unprecedented in the human history of the world. Would it not be apposite then to speak of the world’s largest housing crisis already happening – but for some reason going unnoticed. And that, in turn, means: without the massive mobilization of private real estate investors, the housing problem in Africa’s cities cannot be solved.

To make matters worse, African cities are characterized by polycentricity, a characteristic all the rage in European urban planning discourse. While it has long since been a lived reality in Africa, this does not mean it does not create immense problems: The CBDs or CGDs (Central Government Districts), and it is there that then glitzy high-rises tend to stand, mean there is a strong emphasis on road traffic in the absence of built public transportation infrastructure. And a growing emphasis on gated communities in the polycentric districts.

And this brings us back to our two initial questions:

1. Why are there so far fewer residential high-rises?

2. Where do the people live?

Find out some possible answers behind the paywall:

• How African population growth translates into housing demand

• What all this has to do with the SDGs.

• The types of investors needed for African real estate markets

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Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian entrepreneur behind the Dangote Group, has apparently taken a major step towards the initial public offering (IPO) for the Dangote Refinery in Lekki, Nigeria. At least insofar as they concern the pre-IPO.

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Two significant events took place in the Sahel last week. And in each instance, Russia was at the center of attention—in the one case in a positive light, in the other in a negative one.

On July 4, roughly 5,000 fighters in a coordinated multi-front assault launched by the Tuareg-led FLA (Azawad Liberation Front, seeking an independent secular Azawad) and JNIM (the al-Qaeda-linked jihadist coalition, which wants sharia rule over Mali) attacked Anefis in Mali, and simultaneously hit Gao, Aguelhoc, and Sévaré.

Anefis may only be a town of just some 5,000 inhabitants. But it matters because it straddles the logistics corridor between Gao and Kidal, about 150 km from separatist-held Kidal — and is thus effectively the gateway to the north.

It seems that the Malian Army (FAMa) and their Russian allies were caught sleeping, as the FLA and JNIM have historically been rivals with incompatible goals so their cooperation against the junta of Malian president Assimi Goïta is itself a significant development.

Largest offensive since 2012

Since April 25, 2026, Mali has faced its largest offensive since the 2012 rebellion as the two rivals concluded a tactical alliance. In that April wave they retook Kidal — the historic center of Tuareg resistance that the Russian Wagner Group/Africa Corps had captured back in 2023; the Africa Corps reportedly withdrew under fire, apparently with Algerian mediation, leaving equipment and at least one downed helicopter behind.

With the support of the Africa Corps Malian troops held the garrison in Anesif itself but came under siege. A relief convoy was sent from Gao on July 5, but was ambushed near Tabrichat, 60 km West of Anesif on the RN18 linking Gao with Kidal. An official cited by Reuters said that the rebels downed a Russian Mi-24 helicopter, a large helicopter gunship designed by the Soviet Red Army in the 1970s for powerful attacks.

With no European or American troops remaining in the Sahel, and given that journalists and other observers are forced to report from cities that are often far away (Bamako is 1,200 km from Kidal), it is difficult to obtain reliable information about events in the region. Reuters itself claimed that it “could not independently verify” the information they gave. The information about the helicopter incident goes back to Russian Telegram channel Afrikar. It is unclear whether it was a helicopter belonging to the Africa Corps or to the Malian army.

Lavrov on goodwill tour through Africa

At the same time, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, embarked on a tour of Africa from July 7 to July 10, 2026. He visited Ethiopia, Niger, Mozambique, and Burundi. Niger was Lavrov’s first-ever visit, and Russian commentary described it as closing a diplomatic loop, since he has now visited all three countries of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES): Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

In Niger’s capital city Niamey, he pushed what Moscow calls a “3+1” format meant to coordinate security, finance, and media policy between Russia and the three Sahelian juntas, under the broader banner of a “Second Awakening” — the idea that political decolonization in the 1960s was not matched by economic sovereignty, and that Russia is now Africa’s partner in claiming the value of its own resources.

Lavrov’s trip was undoubtedly a diplomatic success, especially against the backdrop of the military setback in Anefis. However, some German media outlets turned this into a headline that completely misses the point:

“After the Bundeswehr’s withdrawal: Russia expands its dominance in the Sahel”

Firstly, the German army, Bundeswehr, has never played any significant role in the Sahel. It rarely ventured outside its camps and primarily provided support to the French fighting units. The Bundeswehr itself describes its Mali engagement in these words:

“From 2013 until the end of 2023, the Bundeswehr participated in the UN stabilization mission MINUSMA and the EU training mission EUTM in Mali. The deployment encompassed reconnaissance, air transport, and aerial refueling, as well as the training of Malian security forces, with the aim of stabilizing the country internally and combating Islamist terrorist groups.”

Secondly, the current situation is not at all about Russian “hegemony” in the Sahel or West Africa. Quite the opposite. Rather, Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to salvage whatever he can of his influence in this region. Russia’s precarious situation is also due to the fact that its logistical capabilities in the region are increasingly constrained.

Added to which, as we discussed in an earlier blog, the United States are slowly starting to become involved in the region again, even if the African Command AFRICOM recently confirmed it was withdrawing troops from Nigeria after “successful operations” against Sahel terrorism there.

So much for the facts—at least insofar as they are known and in as far as they can be verified. What concerns us most, however, are the implications for the entire region. Investors must worry not only about the consequences within the region itself but also about potential spillover effects into neighboring states – read “southwards.” In this context, a distinction must be made between two groups of investors, as our analysis behind the paywall will demonstrate. In the process, we will also see what Lavrov actually hoped to achieve with his trip to Africa—but did not openly state.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• The plans Putin is now pursuing in the Sahel

• Which groups matter in the region now

• Where the real risks for investors lie

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We have to admit that we do not fully understand the strategy of Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals FZE. But we are in good company in this regard. For it is not clear what exactly Dangote is planning in East Africa. Only this much is certain: Aliko Dangote has traveled to Tanzania and Kenya in recent days to build another refinery there.

This trip raised a question that, in our view, is crucial for evaluating the IPO. We would like to discuss this question with our paying subscribers as an exclusive feature. Join the Capital News Africa family for just €25 a month.

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Leading stock markets in Africa delivered a solid performance in the first half of 2026. Nevertheless, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSX) in Lagos far outstripped the others. The index had risen by 46.8% year-to-date by the close of June 30. Nigeria thus recorded a particularly strong first half of the year, even though the macroeconomic environment—marked by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s stalled reforms—provided no tailwind.

And finally, the announcement of the IPO of the Dangote Refinery is drawing stronger interest among international investors in the Nigerian stock market. We are pleased to regularly provide our subscribers with the latest news about this groundbreaking IPO, one more reason to opt for a paid subscription at just €25 a month.

Kenya also staged a strong rally during HY1, however it was steadier. The NSE All-Share Index (NASI) is up 21.8% on the year, with the NSE 10 blue-chip index up 25.4% and the NSE 20 climbing around 22%, as of early July. Banking stocks have led the way— the NSE Banking Sector Index is up nearly 25% as at the end of H1 — supported by falling interest rates and record market capitalization.

It is impossible to overlook: emerging markets are once again moving into the focus of international investors, and frontier markets follow the pack.

In this blog post, we assess this upward cycle. We examine which stock markets are currently of particular interest. And above all, we address the question likely uppermost in investors’ minds: How can you invest in African stocks if you want to be part of the new story currently being written by African financial markets?

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• How have the various stock markets in Africa performed?

• What do investors need to keep a particularly close eye on?

• What is the best way for investors to invest in Africa?

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Summer spells peak season for international conferences. Scarcely a week goes by without at least one major conference placing Africa or Africa and the Global South at the top of the agenda. This get-together marathon in business suits is invariably accompanied by the accusation that the Global North is preventing Africa from itself industrially processing its raw materials, be they metals (even gold) or agricultural products.

Yes, that is correct. One-sided trade agreements favor the import of raw materials into the European Union while imposing high tariffs on the import of processed commodities from Africa into the EU. Prime examples of this unfair practice are coffee, cashew, and cocoa.

This aspect should not be forgotten. But, and it’s as big but: That is not the real question. What needs to be asked first and foremost is: If this imbalance is so glaring, why aren’t African governments taking tougher action against it? After all, China managed to break free from the dominance of the industrialized West. So why doesn’t Africa?

Africa doesn’t need to become Switzerland

Nevertheless, the goal should be clear. Africa doesn’t need to become Switzerland making chocolate. It just needs to stop being the entity that allows the beans to be shipped out, on ships it probably does not own.

Let’s be honest: The complaint about the Global North preventing Africa from establishing its own processing sector is not only an old chestnut, it is also only half the truth. The other half lies within Africa itself — for instance, in the fact that extraction-based economies invite and encourage mismanagement, rent-seeking, favoritism, insulated elites, and corruption.

Developing industrial manufacturing entails a shift in power: In Europe it was away from the aristocracy and toward the new middle class. In Africa it must be away from the person who run politics as a revenue stream (rather than in order to represent popular interests) and toward entrepreneurs who create businesses. Take a look at Russia: Has it fostered its industrial sector over the past 40 years? No. Has it nurtured an extractive economy driven by oligarchs? Yes. And this is probably why many African political leaders have just as little desire to emphasize local processing.

For this reason, in our assessment, the complaint about unfair trade remains too superficial. This system persists mainly because it is underpinned by economic criteria. In this blog, we intend to delve deeper and get to the root causes of the economic imbalance between North and South.

To do so, we’ll have a look at the economic theories of the 19^th century, for this phenomenon is not new. At that time, it reflected the economic disparity between England and Germany: that is, between an established economic power and an emerging coal-and-steel region that had united politically and was no longer willing to accept such economic dominance.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• Why such dominance does not necessarily endure

• Asymmetric trade relations reinforce colonial power dynamics

• Free trade is an instrument of the powerful

• How investors can participate in building a processing industry

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Total African public debt is estimated at around $1.8 trillion, but the situation varies strongly from one government to another. In some countries, the debt-to-GDP ratio remains below 50%, in others it exceeds 80%.

That is the perspective of public accountants. Furthermore, debt sustainability varies far more widely from one country to another. Many NGOs from the Global North are therefore worried about the mountain of sovereign debt in Africa. Debt Justice UK, e.g., speaks of “the worst debt crisis in a generation.” The UK organization Christian Aid quotes Kenyan artist and activist Ziya Africa saying:

“Debt is not just numbers. It is empty plates, unpaid dreams and stolen futures.”

We would like to comment on this quote and be a bit more precise: The consequences of debt depend on the purpose for which the funds are used. If the money goes toward consumption — including government consumption — then Ziya Africa is right. However, debt can also finance infrastructure, and in that way boost economic growth and create prosperity for the population.

A toxic combination

The debt level is undoubtedly a cause for concern in many African countries, but we consider attempts to talk up a debt crisis to be alarmist rhetoric. The key issue is less the level of sovereign debt, and more the cost of servicing debt. It is the latter which is unusually high in Africa. The combination of exorbitant interest rates and hard currency debt proves all too often to be toxic.

Even development finance institutions (DFIs) such as KfW, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Proparco or FMO help stoke this fire. They ostensibly seek to selflessly to support Africa, but they mainly provide loans and contributed virtually no equity, which is far more needed. Moreover, DFIs generally issue loans in dollars or euros, thereby exacerbating Africa’s balance-of-payments problems.

Many African governments are finding it increasingly difficult to secure loans at favorable interest rates. However, resourceful investment bankers from London or New York have a solution ready for this, too.

Yet the instruments in question have their pitfalls. They provide short-term relief, but in the long run, they create dependency and the risk of far greater damage. And if you find yourself thinking not only of Wall Street banks but also of the South Bronx and its Roberto Clemente Plaza with its drug market, then that could be pure coincidence. In this blog, we examine how investment banks create and exacerbate dependencies.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• New financial structures are often more dangerous than loans

• Why the IMF does not like them

• Where the real risks for investors lie

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By Jeremy Gaines and Christian Hiller von Gaertringen

Underinvestment in Africa’s energy sector is one of the central constraints on the continent’s economic development. It affects productivity, industrialization, fiscal stability, urbanization, and ultimately the credibility of the “African growth story.”

Manufacturing will be difficult, as competitiveness depends on stable power, affordable energy, and predictable supply chains. Without a reliable power supply, African factories will operate below capacity, and productivity is set to remain below the international norm.

This hurts above all small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the backbone of any sustainable economy and the driver of job creation: They have to cover a large share of operating costs deriving from diesel fuel, generators, repairs, energy redundancy, and they also lose a lot of time for handling the supply with power for their activity. The lack in power suppresses entrepreneurship and expansion into the formal sector.

Daily struggle with unreliable supply

An unreliable power sector is the Achilles heel of many African economies and the main reason why many remain heavily dependent on exports of raw materials, non-processed agricultural produce, and low-productivity services. Indeed, it is sadly fair to say that many African firms operate under conditions that would be considered extraordinary elsewhere.

They have to face:

• daily outages,

• voltage instability,

• fuel shortages,

• and self-generation through expensive backup systems.

• Some countries (first and foremost Kenya and Morocco, to name but two) have succeeded in modernizing their power sectors and reliably stabilizing the supply.

• But in other economic leaders such as Nigeria, South Africa or Ghana, large businesses often spend heavily on diesel generation simply to maintain continuity. This is inefficient and brings productivity of the manufacturing sector down.

In our view, Africa’s undersupply of reliable and affordable electricity is one of the greatest threats to African growth. Energy is at the same time one of the top investment opportunities in the world, if investors do it right.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• The threat of the energy production gap.

• Why African governments are overwhelmed.

• How investors can truly contribute to the solution.

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One of the biggest and most IPOs in Wall Street history has been successfully completed on Friday. Space X raised a record-breaking $75 billion. This made South African-born Elon Musk the first trillionaire in history.

The Space X IPO creates a favorable environment for further IPOs in the world, as well as for the Dangote Petroleum Refinery—arguably the largest IPO in the history of African stock markets.

Here is the latest news on the Dangote IPO, exclusively for our subscribers.

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Hopes for rapid industrialization in Africa have not yet materialized. Nevertheless, the demand for energy across the continent is rising rapidly. The International Energy Agency estimates that electricity demand is increasing by around 5 percent annually across the continent.

We anticipate that the need for reliable, affordable electricity will be significantly driven by digitization and AI. In this context, data centers are the central part of the critical infrastructure that will shape Africa’s economic future.

With a robust digital infrastructure combined with a reliable power supply, Africa has many opportunities to become a pioneer of the 21^st century—in med-tech, biotech, telemedicine, e-learning, and many other fields that will improve life for the millions of Africans yet to be born.

Population will push innovation

Consistent digitization will enable Africa to cope with rapid population growth. It is impossible to imagine how the more than one billion children expected to be born over the next three decades could receive a quality education without e-learning. Telesurgery—where the operating physician can be thousands of kilometers away—will bring tangible improvements to healthcare in Africa. Digitization in agriculture will help enhance soils and food supplies in terms of both quantity and quality. All of this requires high-performance networks, stable internet connections, and data centers.

When it comes to data warehouses, the sector is on the continent still in the early stages. Nevertheless, the analysts of global consulting firm McKinsey are quite optimistic in their report:

“The market for data centers in Africa is entering a phase of accelerated growth, with demand for capacity expected to rise from about 0.4 gigawatts (GW) today to 1.5 to 2.2 GW by 2030.”

Investors looking at Africa’s long-term growth story should pay close attention to these colocation facilities as they sit at the intersection of several structural trends: digitization, demographics, urbanization, financial inclusion, AI, and digital sovereignty.

Africa is experiencing one of the world’s fastest increases in internet usage, smartphone adoption, streaming, cloud services, fintech transactions, and mobile money. That creates a classic infrastructure-growth opportunity, as demand is rising fast, supply is scarce, and barriers to market entry are high. We are highlighting the tremendous opportunities – and one substantial risk that threatens the continent’s development.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• Which are the leading data centers in Africa.

• How the market for data centers in Africa will grow.

• What the key opportunities and key challenges are.

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One day, a Kenyan farmer told me: “We are not poor,” he said. “It’s just that we do not have money.” And this was true for many years in Africa. Many people could make a living unless they had to shoulder financial outlays, in other words they lived at a subsistence level as it was always difficult to market the products of their farms at a fair price.

For many centuries, land was abundant in Africa as the continent was largely underpopulated and still is. With an area of 322,000 km², Ivory Coast is roughly the same size as Germany (357,000 km²). Fifty years ago, in 1976, Ivory Coast had around 7 million inhabitants, and today it has 33.5 million. This represents considerable growth, yet it is still only a fraction of Germany’s population (83.5 million).

Population is still growing in Africa in spite of declining fertility rates. As the fastest-growing continent, Africa’s population expanded by over 580% to 1.5 billion from just 228 million in 1950, and it will reach 2.5 billion in 2050. This growth is largely taking place in cities (urbanization has risen from about 36% to 45% over the last two decades or so), where the lack of money actually leads directly to poverty. Africa’s fertility rate declined from a peak of 6.7 births per woman in the 1970s to 3.9. This is still high and combined with a significant decline in mortality rates will push the population growth.

The good news is: Poverty is going down in Africa. This is conclusively shown by World Bank data available on the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP). In 1990, 61.6% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa lived under the 3$ poverty line (in 2021 purchasing power parity terms), in 2025 the figure had dropped to “only” 45.2%.

Significant regional differences

That said, the regional differences are still huge: In 2025, 52.1% of the population in Eastern and Southern Africa is considered as poor according to the above definition, with the figure being lower at 35.7% in West and Central Africa. While some parts in Africa made strong improvements in fighting poverty, other regions suffer from severe setbacks, specifically in the Sahel, in Sudan, DRC, and both sides of the Horn of Africa.

Nobody can deny it: Poverty is still a huge problem for Africa and will remain a major cause of social tensions. Should African economic growth rates actually get anyway near the potential, social inequalities will increase further, as future gains in prosperity will continue to be unequally distributed. Some will be among the winners, while living conditions will worsen for the lion’s share of the population.

In an astonishing number of areas, the decline in poverty creates investment opportunities. In this blog, we demonstrate how investors in Africa can strategically leverage the decline in poverty and the resulting gains in prosperity. We won’t beat around the bush. Instead, we will identify 10 specific areas where investors can do tangible good and make money at the same time.

What awaits you behind the paywall:

• Why poverty in Africa went down.

• How poverty reduction creates investment opportunities.

• How investors can jump on this bandwagon.

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