Africa’s next wave of infrastructure investment will be led by energy, transport, and logistics, as governments and private investors shift focus to sectors capable of unlocking industrialisation, boosting intra-African trade, and supporting manufacturing, according to Bowale Odumade, founder and chief executive officer of SeedTree Capital.
In an exclusive interview with BusinessDay, Odumade said reliable electricity remains the continent’s most urgent infrastructure priority, warning that Africa’s ambitions for economic transformation will remain constrained unless power deficits are addressed.
“Energy comes first,” Odumade said. “Nearly half of Africans lack reliable electricity, and without it, everything else becomes more difficult and more expensive.”
Africa faces an infrastructure financing gap estimated at more than $100 billion annually, according to the African Development Bank, with inadequate electricity, inefficient transport systems, and weak logistics networks continuing to undermine productivity, investment, and regional trade.
Odumade said while the continent possesses abundant energy resources, the biggest challenge is mobilising finance for projects and ensuring power reaches consumers and industries.
“The opportunity is significant because the continent has abundant resources. The gap is in getting them financed and connected to demand,” she said.
She noted that improving electricity supply would have ripple effects across virtually every sector of the economy, reducing production costs, improving competitiveness, and creating the foundation for industrial growth.
Beyond power, Odumade identified transport and logistics as the next major investment frontier, arguing that inefficient infrastructure continues to raise the cost of doing business across the continent.
“Ports and roads need upgrading and maintenance. Rail, in most parts of the continent, still needs to be built,” she said, adding that inefficient logistics make African goods more expensive while limiting access to regional markets.
Her comments come as African governments increasingly look to infrastructure development as a catalyst for the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which seeks to create the world’s largest free trade area by connecting 54 countries into a single market.
According to Odumade, infrastructure investments should not be viewed as isolated projects but as interconnected assets that reinforce one another.
“The two are sequential. Energy powers production. Transport connects markets,” she explained.
She believes that once reliable power and efficient transport systems are in place, Africa’s next major investment opportunity will emerge in manufacturing, enabling countries to process more raw materials domestically instead of exporting them in their unprocessed form.
“And once both work, the downstream opportunity is manufacturing—adding value to Africa’s raw materials locally rather than exporting them for others to process. That is where the real economic transformation happens,” she said.
Odumade argued that despite widespread perceptions that Africa’s infrastructure challenge is primarily about financing, the continent already has access to significant pools of long-term domestic capital.
Africa’s pension funds, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds collectively hold more than $2 trillion in long-term assets, yet less than three percent is currently invested in infrastructure, according to her.
The CEO attributed the disconnect largely to a shortage of well-prepared, bankable projects rather than a lack of available funding, noting that investors are increasingly willing to finance projects with sound commercial structures, realistic assumptions, and credible sponsors.
As infrastructure demand accelerates over the coming decade, Odumade urged policymakers to prioritise project preparation, regulatory consistency, and stronger public-private partnerships to create a predictable pipeline of investment-ready opportunities capable of attracting both domestic and international capital.
She maintained that while energy and transport will dominate infrastructure spending over the next decade, their greatest value will lie in enabling broader economic transformation through industrialisation, regional trade, and manufacturing growth, rather than simply expanding physical assets.
