African markets and business updates

Africa does not suffer from a lack of opportunity. It suffers from a shortage of institutional capital platforms capable of mobilising long-term, patient, and disciplined capital at scale. The numbers are well known, yet still sobering. African SMEs face an estimated financing gap exceeding $350bn; annual infrastructure needs are assessed at $130-170bn while actual investment consistently falls tens of billions short each year. At the same time, Africa's population has surpassed 1.5bn billion…

Italy's prime minister Georgia Meloni visited Ethiopia last week in a bid to shore up the country's diplomatic and commercial relationships in Africa. Meloni attended an Italy-Africa summit in Addis Ababa, two years after the previous summit was held in Rome, before addressing a meeting of the African Union (AU) at its headquarters in the Ethiopian capital. In her address to the AU…

Water and sanitation were the main themes of the 2026 African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, with governments, development partners and business talking about how to transform a life-giving sector that has enormous, mostly unrecognised, economic value. It is a major challenge. Across sub-Saharan Africa, about one in three people still lack access to basic drinking water services while about two in three lack access to sanitation services. The situation is particularly dire in rural areas. For years…

As artificial intelligence becomes a defining driver of global economic competitiveness, the India AI Summit has emerged as an influential convening platform for governments, investors and technology builders. For African economies, the clearest message from the gathering was that AI is no longer viewed as a distant prospect, but as an immediate business and policy priority. With participation from more than 100 countries and a strong emphasis on applied AI, digital public infrastructure and emerging markets…

Africa's long-standing struggles with energy access are coming into sharper focus than ever at the start of 2026. Just four years remain until 2030, the deadline for achieving the continent's goal of bringing electricity to 300m people under the Mission 300 initiative championed by the World Bank and African Development Bank. "2026 is a decisive execution year," says Martijn Proos, co-head of emerging market alternative credit at investment manager Ninety One.…

Limited access to reliable water and sanitation services remains one of the most pressing developmental challenges facing African countries today. Even though some 250 million people have been connected to basic water services over the past decade, population growth and climate-driven water scarcity have eroded those gains. Across sub-Saharan Africa, about 1 in 3 people still lack access to basic drinking water services while about 2 in 3 lack access to sanitation services.…

Qatar Airways is in talks to expand its cooperation with Kenya Airways (KQ), including potentially acquiring an equity stake in the cash-strapped airline, as the Doha-based carrier seeks to expand its presence in East Africa, which it has made a strategic priority. In October last year the two airlines announced that they had begun "codesharing" on flights to 19 destinations to expand connectivity between Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.…

Why, exactly, is Africa a relatively poor continent, and what are the policies that can accelerate its growth? Thus Joe Studwell narrowed down the question that he says Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates invited him to pursue to follow up his earlier How Asia Works: " can Africa - like Asia - defeat poverty, become prosperous, raise its self-confidence and play a stronger cultural role in the world?" Following that book with a doctorate from the University of Cambridge, Studwell has earned an impressive record.…

In the hardware markets of Nairobi, Lagos and Accra, amid stacks of cement and piping, a quieter revolution is under way. It is not driven by megaproject finance, but by simple plastic toilet pans and handwashing devices designed for households beyond the reach of municipal sewerage. For a continent urbanising at record speed, the race to provide safe sanitation has become as urgent as any transport corridor or power plant. The scale of the challenge is stark. According to WHO and UNICEF, 3.…

The banking sector's long-awaited "Basel III" regulatory reforms are due to be implemented at the start of 2027 after several delays, in a move that is designed to promote global banking stability, but which critics fear could have negative implications for African banks and economies. The Basel III reforms were first developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008.…