Africa

1. PEPFAR’s future
2. US travel ban
3. Unlocking infrastructure
4. China financing dips
5. Mission 300 looks to Europe
6. Zambia former leader dies
7. Weekend Reads

A Malian film tackles forced marriage.

Hi! The China-Africa debate in the political theater of Capitol Hill often requires a bingo card of clichés about the role of Chinese players on the continent. This week’s hearing at the US Senate’s Africa and Global Health Policy subcommittee was not that different, but it did get me thinking about what Washington believes it wants.

On Wednesday Troy Fitrell, ostensibly the highest-placed US-Africa official, was on hand to respond to questions about “China’s malign influence” in Africa. “Greater US economic engagement is urgently needed to bolster African efforts to counter China’s growing influence on the African continent,” he told the hearing.

Despite being the largest economy in the world with many of the biggest and most advanced enterprises globally, the US isn’t necessarily best placed to deliver on this promise. It doesn’t have the coordinating heft of a Chinese government with state-owned enterprises or significant influence over private companies.

The irony, said Eric Olander, editor of the China Global South Project, is that even as it says it is countering malign influence, the Trump administration is proposing to follow the Chinese playbook on the continent by focusing on trade and commercial partnerships rather than humanitarian and health missions. Whether it can pull that off is one thing, whether African governments are able to navigate this in a way that benefits their citizens is a completely different matter.

Republicans debate PEPFAR

US Republicans are at odds over whether to cut funding for a well-regarded anti-HIV program as part of efforts to codify spending cuts, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller scooped. The White House sent Congress a bill that would cut at least $9 million from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and is requesting a further $900 million in cuts to global health spending.

But some Republicans are skeptical of further cuts to PEPFAR, a President George W. Bush-era program which is credited with saving more than 25 million lives, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, over the last two decades. Its future has now been cast into doubt by the Trump administration’s aid pullback. “If PEPFAR is in there, that is a red line,” one Republican congressman said of the legislation, adding that it was “a noble program.”

The White House’s own officials appear divided. Troy Fitrell, the administration’s top Africa official, defended its PEPFAR policy in a congressional hearing on Wednesday, saying that “85% of the program is continuing” as the State Department is “absorbing the tasks USAID used to do in regard to PEPFAR and working out our staffing.” The White House’s top budget official Russell Vought took a different tack when pressed on the issue in a separate hearing on the same day, saying that “at some point, the continent of Africa needs to absorb more of the burden of providing this health care.”

— Mathias Hammer

AU concerns over Trump travel ban

The African Union expressed concern about the impact of a new travel ban imposed by the US on seven countries on the continent. Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan are among the 12 countries whose nationals will not be permitted to travel to the United States from Monday under an order signed by US President Donald Trump — who also signed a similar ban during his first presidency. The AU said it is “concerned about the potential negative impacts” on diplomacy and commercial engagement.

Nationals from three other African countries — Burundi, Sierra Leone, and Togo — were among seven additional nations who face partial travel restrictions to the US. Migrants from the named countries have some of the highest visa overstay rates in America, according to US immigration authorities. In response to the travel ban, Chad said it will stop granting visas to American citizens.

Africa can unlock infrastructure trillions

Africa can boost the pace of its much-needed infrastructure drive by unlocking at least $4 trillion from a wide range of fragmented and under-utilized domestic sources, new research by one of the continent’s leading financial institutions found.

The Africa Finance Corporation, a backer of the Lobito Corridor rail project that aims to link mining regions in DR Congo and Zambia to ports in Angola, estimates that Africa’s domestic capital base includes $2.5 trillion in commercial banking assets and about $1.5 trillion across the non-banking sector.

While foreign reserves make up the majority of the non-bank segment, about 28% is domiciled in pensions alone, the Lagos-based AFC said. Insurance firms, development banks, sovereign wealth funds, and remittances are also sources that could be tapped to finance Africa’s infrastructure, the bank said in its report.

China’s African energy pullback

A steep decline in Chinese development finance is reshaping how energy projects are funded across Africa, accelerating a shift toward private capital and clean energy solutions, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.

Chinese development finance institutions (DFIs) — once pivotal players in African infrastructure — have slashed their energy investments on the continent by more than 85% since 2015. Their retreat contributed to an overall one-third drop in public and DFI funding for African energy, falling to just $20 billion in 2024 from $28 billion in 2015, said the IEA.

Private investors are stepping up — though selectively. Total private investment in clean energy has more than doubled, to nearly $40 billion in 2024 from $17 billion in 2019. Solar power, now the lowest-cost source of energy in many African markets thanks to global price declines, has led the charge. Low-emissions energy made up about 40% of total clean energy investment last year.

More countries look to join Mission 300

Five more African countries presented their plan to join “Mission 300,” a World Bank and African Development Bank initiative to bring electricity to half of the 600 million people without access to power on the continent by 2030.

Burundi, Ghana, Mozambique, Togo, and Zimbabwe shared details of how they would overhaul their electricity sectors at a meeting in London, as they seek to join the dozen countries who’ve already committed to reform their utilities, embrace renewable energy, and expand electricity connection targets.

It’s “a critical juncture” for driving investment into African energy, Frannie Léautier, a longtime development finance expert who is CEO of SouthBridge Investments, said at an ODI Global think tank event on Europe’s role in advancing Mission 300.

— Preeti Jha

Obituary: Edgar Lungu

Edgar Lungu, Zambia’s former president, died aged 68. The former lawyer, who was in office from 2015 to 2021, had attempted to run for the top job again but was barred by a court ruling six months ago. His party, the Patriotic Front, said Lungu passed away at a medical center in South Africa where he had been receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness. Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, a longtime rival of Lungu’s, declared a period of national mourning.

Lungu’s legacy has been widely described as checkered. He oversaw an ambitious infrastructure push as president, in partnership with Chinese state-backed firms, but also racked up billions of dollars in debt: In November 2020, Zambia became the first African country to default on its loans during the global pandemic. “He will be remembered for tolerating thuggery by his supporters although he also represented a brand of politicians who interacted across class,” a political analyst at the University of Zambia told Reuters.

Weekend Reads

• A survivor of female genital cutting in Somalia who has shared her reconstruction journey on TikTok is profiled by The New York Times. In one of her videos, Shamsa Sharawe, 32, slices a rose with a razor blade as she recounts her experience at the age of six. Sharawe, now living in the UK, traveled to Germany for the surgery to reconstruct her vulva. In a video she recorded the night before the operation, she says: “I can finally live in a body that I don’t view as being my enemy,” she said.

• A record label that began in Cameroon’s prisons is branching out to jails in Burkina Faso. Jail Time Records helps inmates find creative outlets and has even launched music careers since it began operations in 2019. “The project helps me to record my music and pursue my passion and avoid going back to my old demons,” one former inmate, who came across the label while in prison as a child, tells The Guardian.

• A new book follows the lives of young South African men in Zandspruit, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg, over 10 years. In Making a Life: Young Men on Johannesburg’s Urban Margins, anthropologist Hannah Dawson draws out how the expansion of Zandspruit reflects broader trends in post-apartheid South Africa including rapid urbanization, inadequate urban housing, and rising unemployment.

• Illegal logging is funding cartels, terrorists, and rogue regimes, two terrorism experts write for Foreign Affairs. In DR Congo’s Virunga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, armed rebel groups make $28 million a year by converting trees into charcoal, which is also known as “black gold.” More than 200 park rangers have been killed in trying to protect the natural resources. Apart from the environment devastation, “illegal logging also poses an outsize — and underacknowledged — geopolitical threat,” they write.

Join 700+ leaders at The Africa Debate on July 2, Invest Africa’s premier conference on trade, investment, and the continent’s global influence. Don’t miss this cornerstone event for Africa-focused investors. Register here.

Business & Macro

🇿🇦 South African fashion retailer Mr Price reported a 7.9% rise in revenue to $2.3 billion for the year ended March 29.

🇨🇩 Canadian company Ivanhoe Mines will resume operations on a section of its Kakula copper mine in DR Congo that it closed in May after tremors caused flooding.

Climate & Energy

🇹🇿 British gas company Petredec will build an energy terminal for liquefied petroleum gas in Tanzania in a $100 million partnership with Dar es Salaam-based Asas Group.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇺🇬 🇧🇯 Solomy Balungi Bossa from Uganda and Reine Alapini-Gansou from Benin are two of four International Criminal Court judges on whom the US has imposed sanctions for “illegitimate and baseless actions” against America and Israel.

🇬🇭 Ghana endorsed Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara region, joining Kenya and the UK who have recently expressed support.

Tech & Deals

🇳🇬 French oil major TotalEnergies sold its stake in a Nigerian oil field to Shell for $510 million.

🇳🇬 Chinese fintech app PalmPay is looking to raise up to $100 million, according to TechCrunch.

A debut film by Fatou Cissé, daughter of the late legendary Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé, tackles the pervasive issue of forced marriage. Furu explores the injustice “with humor, intimacy, and defiance — reimagining African cinema as both tribute and rupture,” reports Africa Is a Country. Fatou draws on the experiences of women she knows in telling her fictional narrative feature about the struggles of Malian women. “I believe that images can do a lot — and they do a lot. That’s a reality. It’s a powerful weapon,” she told the publication.

The rise of AI coding assistants puts software development into the hands of anyone with a good idea, with the next unicorn founder possibly having no technical background, Rachyl Jones reported.

The practice is also sweeping the upper echelons of the startup ecosystem, where, until recently, software talent was the scarcest and most coveted resource.

If you’re enjoying the Semafor Africa briefing and finding it useful, please share with your family and friends. We’d love to have them aboard too.

Let’s make sure this email doesn’t end up in your junk folder by adding africa@semafor.com to your contacts. In Gmail you should drag this briefing over to your ‘Primary’ tab.

You can reply to this email and send us your news tips, gossip, and good vibes.

— Preeti Jha, Alexander Onukwue, and Yinka Adegoke.