How Africa Is Leveraging AI to Leapfrog Development

Road in Dahra, Senegal. Credit: Unsplash

Home to the world’s youngest population and vast reserves of critical minerals, Africa continues to face a severe infrastructure deficit that threatens its long-term economic development. More than 600 million people across the continent still lack access to reliable electricity.

One of the continent’s greatest paradoxes, however, is that despite a significant increase in infrastructure spending over the past 15 years, the number of projects reaching financial close remains disproportionately low. More than 80% of infrastructure projects fail during the feasibility or business-planning stage.

“I wouldn’t say that all this funding goes to waste, but it does not generate the level of impact it is intended to achieve — impact that could otherwise unlock significant development opportunities,” argued Dennis Nderitu, Energy Lead at the Africa Climate and Energy Nexus (AfCEN), during the GFCC May Monthly Call.

To help improve investment readiness and accelerate project implementation, AfCEN is building a new AI-powered digital platform designed to connect infrastructure needs, strategic resources, project developers, and investors across the continent. The project has partners across sectors, including the African Union Development Agency, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the Belgian Agency for International Cooperation, the International Renewable Energy Agency and others.

The platform provides access to real-time intelligence on energy markets, infrastructure corridors, and investment opportunities. The goal is to help investors and institutions identify, structure, and finance more bankable infrastructure projects while reducing information asymmetries and development risks.

“What we are finding is that for Africa to leapfrog its current challenges — including rising debt burdens, declining foreign direct investment, and the pressures of a rapidly growing young population — we will need to leverage technology and AI to create jobs and strengthen healthcare, education, and agriculture,” explained Joseph Nganga, founder of AfCEN.

Joseph Nganga, founder of AfCEN and Dennis Nderitu, Energy Lead at the organization, presented the new AI-powered platform during the GFCC May Monthly Call.

AI- Powered Economic Development

Called AfCEN Infrastructure Intelligence Layer, the technology maps markets, infrastructure corridors, policy environments, critical minerals, agricultural systems, and regulatory compliance mechanisms across the continent. It also integrates corridor-scale satellite processing, multidomain infrastructure mapping, financing intelligence, project matchmaking capabilities, and transparent climate portfolio monitoring systems.

AfCEN is also using the platform to support the development of large-scale regional infrastructure corridors by linking energy systems, railways, mineral supply chains, agribusinesses, and markets into integrated economic ecosystems.

One example is the Abidjan–Lagos Corridor in West Africa. By strategically connecting power infrastructure, transport networks, industrial assets, and regional markets, the initiative seeks to reduce investment risks, improve regional integration, and increase the bankability of infrastructure projects.

Regional Integration and the Future of Competitiveness

AfCEN and the Sierra Leone's Presidential Initiative on Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Food Security (PI-CREF) are managing the technical working groups, the project pipelines and the investor deal rooms for the West Africa Integration and Investment Summit 2026, scheduled for November this year. The GFCC is a partner of the event, which is being convened under the chairmanship of H.E. President Julius Maada Bio, the president of Sierra Leone, in his capacity as current Chair of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State.

In April this year, leaders gathered in Freetown for an Expert Group Meeting and Ministerial Conference to discuss strategic priorities that will help shape the Summit’s agenda. Discussions focused on energy trade and industrial growth, strategic minerals and natural resources, agribusiness and food systems, digital transformation, and regional infrastructure integration.

In the African context, initiatives such as the AfCEN Intelligence Layer, that uses AI to turn data into bankable deals, could be the difference between potential and progress.