Getting to the Crux of Financing Infrastructure in Africa

Speakers

Naoki Ando, Senior Vice President, Japan International Cooperation Agency

Fola Fagbule, D. Director & Head, Financial Advisory, African Finance Corporation

Marjeta Jager, Deputy Director-General for the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), European Commission

Amine Idriss Adoum, Director, Infrastructure and Energy, Industrialisation, Trade and Regional Integration, African Union Development Agency-NEPAD

Additional speakers TBC

Moderators

Mikaela Gavas, Senior Policy Fellow and Managing Director, CGD Europe

Niclas Poitiers, Research fellow, Bruegel

This event is co-hosted with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), in the occasion of the 70th year anniversary of Japan's Official Development Assistance, and Bruegel. It will be livestreamed from Brussels, Belgium.

We will be convening policymakers, investors and experts to discuss concrete ways to overcome the obstacles to financing infrastructure in Africa. With a financing gap expected to reach USD15 trillion by 2040, we urgently need some creative thinking and practical solutions to bridge the gap. Both the G7 and the EU are ramping up the implementation of the Global Gateway (GG) and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure (PGII) to provide investments to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in sectors such as energy, transport, digital and health. Japan, under its 2023 G7 presidency, took a leading role in coordinating donor efforts to attract private sector capital for infrastructure investment

Yet so many challenges persist, preventing these initiatives from reaching their full potential. At our last event on financing infrastructure in Africa, in collaboration with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, CGD highlighted that the dearth of bankable projects, the weak mobilization of private investors and the limited financial resources from domestic public sectors are all hindering investment in Africa’s infrastructure. The event will aim to get to the crux of the matter: what needs to happen to overcome the obstacles and unlock financing for Africa’s sustainable infrastructure development.