Africa’s infrastructure opportunity depends on closing the execution gap

By George Asamani, MD, Project Management Institute, Sub-Saharan Africa and Lavagnon Ika, Professor of Project Management, Telfer School of Management

The paradox of African infrastructure today is stark. While the “funding gap” continues to dominate policy discourse, it is the “execution gap”, or more precisely, the challenge of translating capital into delivery, that is increasingly shaping development outcomes in Africa.

Across the continent, governments are becoming increasingly sophisticated at raising capital. Investment conferences are attracting global attention, new financing vehicles are emerging, and ambitious infrastructure programmes are being announced with growing frequency. While this progress reflects growing ambition across the continent, it should not obscure the scale of Africa’s remaining infrastructure gap.

The African Development Bank estimates the continent’s infrastructure financing needs at approximately US$400 billion per year. The challenge is no longer solely about raising capital but also about ensuring that investment commitments translate into well-prepared, execution-ready, and bankable projects.

Recent data illustrates this disconnect clearly. South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised economy, has secured over $91 billion (R1.5 trillion) in investment pledges through the South Africa Investment Conferences since 2018. However, only $38.6 billion (R634 billion), just under 42%, had flowed into the economy by March 2026. While investment announcements rarely translate fully into projects, South Africa’s conversion rates remain below global norms, highlighting persistent delivery challenges. McKinsey estimates that 60–80% of announced FDI is typically realised worldwide.

This reveals a critical constraint, a limited pipeline of bankable projects. Many infrastructure projects struggle not because financing is unavailable, but because they fail to progress through the complex preparation and development processes required to attract investment and move toward implementation. As Tidjane Thiam, the former Suisse Credit CEO, recently argued, global investors are actively seeking greater exposure to Africa, drawn by its long-term growth potential. The real bottleneck lies in connecting that capital with bankable opportunities through stronger project preparation, advisory support, and financial intermediation.

These upstream stages involve far more than feasibility studies. They require technical and engineering assessments, environmental, social, and legal reviews, financial and commercial structuring, regulatory alignment, stakeholder coordination, risk allocation, permitting, and implementation planning. In many cases, infrastructure projects lose momentum at these early stages, long before construction begins or financing is fully deployed. As a McKinsey report highlights, fewer than 10% of Africa’s infrastructure projects reach financial close, with nearly 80% failing at the feasibility or business-planning stage.

The implication is significant: the success of infrastructure projects is often determined long before capital is spent on the ground. Strengthening upstream project capability is therefore critical to Africa’s ability to deliver infrastructure at scale. Too many projects fall into the “lack-of-project-management-capacity trap”, where weak preparation and execution undermine otherwise promising initiatives.

This challenge is already visible across major continental infrastructure initiatives. The first phase of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) delivered significant gains, including over 16,000 kilometres of roads and expanded digital and energy connectivity across Africa. Yet one of the most persistent constraints identified was limited capacity for early-stage project preparation, from feasibility studies to structuring investable proposals. The lesson is clear: without stronger upstream capacity, even well-funded infrastructure ambitions struggle to move from commitment to implementation.

Globally, the construction industry is projected to face a shortfall of almost 2.5 million project professionals by 2035, according to Project Management Institute (PMI) research, with Sub-Saharan Africa among the regions experiencing the fastest growth in demand for these skills. This deficit is not merely a labour market issue; it is a structural constraint on development. As infrastructure programmes grow in scale and complexity, the demand for project expertise will likely rise faster than supply.

What is often missing in current policy responses is the recognition that financing alone cannot deliver infrastructure outcomes. Too often, skills development is treated as a secondary concern, an add-on to infrastructure programmes rather than a core component of them. Training remains underfunded, career pathways are unclear, and institutional capacity remains uneven. If Africa is to fully realise its infrastructure ambitions, this must change.

Every dollar raised for infrastructure should be matched by a commitment to build the capabilities required to deliver it. This means embedding skills transfer into infrastructure programmes, strengthening project preparation institutions, expanding university and professional education in project management, and building a pipeline of practitioners equipped to manage projects across the full lifecycle, supported by globally recognised certifications that standardise competence and signal readiness for complex delivery.

Africa’s infrastructure story remains one of enormous opportunity and potential. The continent is mobilising capital, partnerships, and ambition at unprecedented levels. The next step is ensuring that equal attention is given to the institutions, systems, and skills required to turn that momentum into tangible infrastructure outcomes.

Unless investment in project capability moves from rhetoric to reality, Africa risks slowing the pace at which infrastructure can unlock growth, competitiveness, and improved quality of life across the continent.

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