Africa

1. Francophone fundraising
2. Unexpected contraction
3. Gas potential
4. Lenders fear collapse
5. Concrete deal
6. Renewables push

Also, why scientists are excited about footprints in Kenya.

Hello! Welcome to Semafor Africa, where we believe in keeping our promises. That’s ostensibly what President Joe Biden is doing on his visit to Angola this week — fulfilling a pledge he made during the US-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022. He’s showing off the Lobito Corridor initiative this week, which is the capstone of his US-Africa strategy. It has stood out as a success at a time when Republicans have criticized the Biden administration’s overall US-Africa policy.

Some will see Biden’s visit to Angola as almost irrelevant now, given the wave of change sweeping through Washington DC since last month’s election — and the Angolans are watching closely. However, my sources tell me that Trump won’t change position on the Lobito Corridor as his likely Africa appointees are keen to build on the model, for which the US has mobilized $5 billion so far. And it is widely acknowledged as a way to counter China on the continent. This will play well with the China hawks in the new White House.

But the sheer unpredictability of Trump’s approach to policymaking means nobody can be sure how it will play out under his White House. That uncertainty is the reason some in Luanda remain nervous. As one person I spoke with from Luanda told me, these are “realistic concerns.”

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Tech startups drive investment into Francophone Africa

Venture capital investment in French-speaking Africa has ballooned in the last three years, driven by pandemic-era tech innovation and regulatory changes.

The African Private Capital Association, in a report seen by Semafor Africa, said venture capital funding underpinned 60% of deals in Francophone Africa between 2021 and the first half of 2024, having been “virtually absent” in those countries prior to 2016.

The industry body found “an eightfold increase in deal volume between 2012-2020 and 2021-2024 H1, compared to just over a twofold increase across the continent.” The trend was driven by investors betting on tech startups — mainly in financial technology — or companies in sectors where software is driving innovation, such as healthcare and logistics.

Most funding poured into Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Rwanda which have implemented startup-friendly policies, including tax incentives.

South Africa’s economy contracts in Q3

South Africa’s economy unexpectedly shrank in the third quarter of this year, driven by a weak performance in the agricultural sector.

Gross domestic product dropped 0.3% on a quarterly basis, South Africa’s statistics office said on Tuesday. The agriculture sector’s near 29% contraction was due to the effect of drought on maize, soya beans, wheat and sunflower outputs, as well as on fruits and vegetables. The transportation and trade sectors also contracted, depressing the overall growth picture.

The performance was “against expectations of a modest expansion,” Goldman Sachs said in a note. It’s an outcome that is “ incrementally dovish for South Africa’s rate prospects and increases our conviction in consecutive rate cuts at the next two [monetary policy committee] meetings,” the bank’s economics research note said.

— Alexander Onukwue

Going deeper in Nigeria’s Niger Delta

The size of a potential investment by TotalEnergies in a gas project in Nigeria. The project known as Ima could be greenlit next year, the company said at a France-Nigeria business forum in Paris. The company earlier this year approved a $500 million joint venture with state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to develop the Ubeta onshore field in the east of the Niger Delta. Nigeria’s government in October said it hopes to attract up to $10 billion in investment for deep water gas projects through incentives, including tax breaks for companies in the sector.

Kenyan banks risk collapse over proposed law

Up to 24 banks in Kenya could be forced out of business if plans to raise capital requirements become law, claims the country’s bankers association.

The Business Laws amendment bill would progressively raise core capital requirements for banks to 10 billion Kenyan shillings ($76 million) by 2027 from 1 billion shillings currently.

Officials representing the Kenya Bankers Association advocacy group told a parliamentary committee the move would affect the livelihoods of over 7,000 employees. They said these banks account for 13% of all lending by banks to the private sector, highlighting potential ramifications for small and medium sized businesses. But banks have been criticized for slowing down lending to the private sector in favor of buying government bonds.

Implementation of the law would likely lead to a wave of consolidation in the sector, with smaller banks forced to sell or merge with larger players.

— Martin K.N Siele

Chinese company snaps up Nigerian cement manufacturer

Swiss building materials manufacturer Holcim will sell its stake in Nigerian cement company Lafarge Africa to Huaxin, a Chinese company. The $1 billion deal is expected to be completed in 2025, Holcim said.

Holcim holds an 84% stake in Lafarge Africa but is divesting as part of a broader move to focus on core growth markets. It sold businesses in Tanzania and Uganda last year.

Lafarge Africa is one of Nigeria’s largest cement companies with four plants that have a combined output of 10.5 million tonnes per year. The company’s profit after taxes fell 4.7% last year despite a 9% increase in net sales. Its sale is the latest instance of a Nigerian company whose foreign parent has divested from it, following Diageo’s sale of Guinness Nigeria in June to Singaporean group Tolaram.

— Alexander

Semafor has announced Carlyle Co-Chairman David Rubenstein, Citadel Founder & CEO Ken Griffin, former US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and KKR Co-Chairman Henry Kravis as Co-Chairs of the World Economy Summit on April 23-25, 2025.

Their participation reflects the extraordinary prestige of this unique event in Washington, D.C., which brings together US Cabinet officials, global finance ministers, central bankers and Fortune 500 CEOs for conversations that cut through the political noise to dive into the most pressing issues facing the world economy.

Renewables provider lands $140M loan

African renewable energy provider CrossBoundary Energy secured a $140 million loan from South Africa’s Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender by assets, to finance the company’s portfolio across 18 African countries.

The loan is part of a planned $300 million package. CrossBoundary’s solutions target corporate clients in the telecoms, mines and consumer goods manufacturing sectors. Unilever, Diageo, and Heineken are among its clients in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. The company has 330 MW of solar and wind assets, and 178 MWh of battery energy storage solutions.

Its largest project, opened in August, is a solar and wind generation facility in a Madagascan mine owned by a subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto. Its capacity is being expanded with a new wind farm consisting of 19 turbines.

— Alexander

Geopolitics

🇸🇳 Senegal’s president renewed calls for France to apologize and fully investigate the World War II massacre of African soldiers by French troops in 1944.

🇰🇪 🇺🇬 Kenya’s President William Ruto said he and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni would lead mediation efforts between Ethiopia and Somalia in a dispute that threatens to destabilize the Horn of Africa region.

Deals

🇰🇪 🇸🇿 Kenya’s state power company KenGen signed a $2 million deal with the Eswatini Electricity Company to study the feasibility of establishing a geothermal power plant.

🌍 IHS Towers issued a $1.2 billion bond with Emerging Africa & Asia Infrastructure Fund, the International Finance Corporation, and Proparco as anchor investors. It will help the telecoms tower provider to refinance existing debt and support growth in six African countries.

Governance

🇳🇦 Namibia’s Independent Patriots for Change opposition party presidential candidate Panduleni Itula alleged there had been electoral malpractices in last week’s election and said they would not recognize the results. Early results showed the candidate of the ruling SWAPO party was leading.

🇧🇯 Benin’s government will this month start accepting applications for nationality by people of African descent whose ancestors were deported as part of the slave trade, according to authorities.

🇬🇭 Ghana’s government could be shut down by early next year if the parliament fails to pass a provisional budget before the Dec. 7 elections, former officials and experts told Reuters.

🇨🇮 Côte d’Ivoire’s former first lady Simone Gbagbo announced she would run for president in the 2025 election. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2015 on charges of undermining state security, before benefitting from a national reconciliation amnesty law in 2018.

Two different species on the human family tree shared the same landscape about 1.5 million years ago, according to new research. Scientists have established that the two species — Paranthropus boisei and Homo erectus — trudged along the shores of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, leaving behind intersecting trackways that turned into fossils at a place known as Koobi Fora. The researchers studied the footprints, which they said provide information on anatomy, locomotion, behavior and environments that skeletal fossils or stone tools would not.

An Apple employee is suing the company for allegedly spying on its workers through their personal devices and iCloud accounts, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti scooped. The lawsuit is interesting, Albergotti wrote, because it “puts Apple’s vast universe of personal data under the spotlight at a time when it is pitching itself as the privacy-focused alternative in the age of artificial intelligence.”

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— Yinka, Alexis, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, and Muchira Gachenge.