Africa’s infrastructure financing gap is usually described as a money problem. After more than thirty years financing projects across the continent, I have come to see it as a preparation problem. There is no global shortage of capital looking for stable, long-term returns. What is in short supply is a steady flow of projects structured in a way that capital can actually invest in, and the institutions capable of producing them. Closing the gap is less about finding new money and more about making the continent’s projects investable.
Ghana offers a useful case study in how to go about that. Not because it has solved the problem, but because it has approached it deliberately. Rather than chasing infrastructure one transaction at a time, the country invested in building permanent capability. Creating a dedicated infrastructure fund reflected a simple insight: private capital responds to continuity, not to individual announcements. An institution that can originate, structure, finance and govern projects over many years gives investors a counterpart they can plan around, and gives the country somewhere to build expertise that does not leave when a single deal closes.
Several of the ingredients that make this work are not unique to Ghana, and they travel well to other markets. Policy stability gives investors a horizon they can plan against. Credible institutions give them a partner they can trust. And a disciplined pipeline of well-prepared projects gives them something concrete to back. None of these is dramatic, and none makes headlines on its own, but together they are what move money from intention to commitment.
The harder lesson is that an institution earns trust slowly, and through process rather than personality. Investors want to see that decisions rest on sound analysis, that governance is real, and that the same standards apply to every transaction regardless of who is promoting it. Once an institution has built that reputation, raising capital becomes far easier, because investors are no longer being asked to take a leap of faith on each new project. They are backing a track record.
When I talk to investors, what they ask for above all is clarity. Who carries which risk. How revenue is secured. What happens if something goes wrong. Thorough preparation and a clear investment case do more to unlock funding than any amount of promotion. Capital follows confidence, and confidence is built through rigour and consistency, applied over time.
The thread running through all three is that they work best when they are planned and financed together, rather than as a scattered list of projects. That calls for institutions capable of developing, structuring and governing projects over time, and for an honest sense of which projects are genuinely ready for investment. Capital is available for work that is well prepared. The constraint is rarely the money; it is the pipeline and the institutions around it.
For governments setting out on this path, my advice is to start with institutions and project preparation rather than with the headline projects themselves. Build the capacity to develop and govern projects properly, and be honest about which ones are genuinely ready for investment. A small number of well-structured, bankable projects will always attract more capital than a long list of ambitions that are not yet ready to be financed.
Solomon Asamoah is a development finance and infrastructure investment specialist with more than thirty years of leadership experience with leading major institutions across Africa, including the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF).
