Can Better Policy Turn Africa’s Infrastructure Gap into an Investment Opportunity?

Africa’s infrastructure challenge is often framed as a shortage of capital. But what if the bigger constraint comes before the money?

Hosted by Energy News Network (ENN) in partnership with The Electricity Hub, Let’s Talk Energy continues its series recorded live at the Africa Energy Forum 2026 in Cape Town with Aida Sitdikova, Director and Head of Sustainable Infrastructure, Middle East and Africa at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

For Aida, infrastructure becomes a driver of industrialisation when it is treated not simply as an end result, but as a platform for economic growth. Power, grids and connections need to enable businesses to invest, industrial clusters to expand and trade to move more efficiently across borders.

That starts with policy. From weak PPA bankability and off-taker creditworthiness to tariff design and regulatory uncertainty, Aida argues that many of the barriers holding back capital are rooted in the conditions surrounding projects. Get the risk allocation and regulatory environment right, and private investment is far more likely to follow.

Looking towards 2035, the conversation turns to where the next opportunities could emerge: grid expansion, regional power interconnections, affordable renewable energy, battery storage and other system-level infrastructure capable of supporting a more connected and competitive African economy.