by LUKE ZUNGA
LUANDA, (CAJ News) – THIS week saw the President of Angola, H.E. João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, hosting the Luanda Financing Summit for Africa’s Infrastructure Development from 28 to 31 October 2025.
The objective of the summit was to push for development of Africa’s Infrastructure under the auspices of the African Union.
The areas of infrastructure include roads, railway lines, airports, airlines, seaports, shipping, bridges, dams, power stations, water supply, water reticulation, sewerage, forestry, water ways, solar power, telecommunications – the list is endless. This is the third conference on Africa’s Infrastructure development financing.
The Angolan President who is the current chair of African Union was joined by Zambian President, Hakainde Hichilema; Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo Addo; President of the Algerian Council of the Nation, Azouz Nasri; the South African Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Maropene Ramokgopa; Kenyan President William Samoei Ruto; H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission; Hon.
Athian Ding Athian, Minister of Finance and Planning of South Sudan; Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy at the African Union Commission, Nardos Bekele-Thomas; Chief Executive Officer of the African Union Development Agency, Nardos Bekele-Thomas etc; There was also Ministers of finance and delegations from various regional and economic blocks such as ECOWAS, and the so-called investors and business leaders.
The Past American President, Joe Biden attended on the sidelines of the conference.
The first comment is that too many delegates will not come up with solutions. The procedure at all conferences is the same; thematic groups and each group tendering its ideas, which are written down and submitted as a report to the AU secretariat.
The conference is financed by foreign powers, who receive the report. It is a talk shop. There is no conference to go to the moon or to design a computer. Where intuitive brains are required a conference is hapless.
The task is indeed huge, with an estimated $200 billion annual deficit on infrastructure. There were acknowledged successes of the past, being $888 billion commitments in project development, $22M in project preparation, with 9 projects in various stages towards construction.
The view of many African citizens is that the African leadership wants to develop but does not know how to do it. To develop Africa the correct policy is to involve the black people or to place the citizens of Africa at the forefront of its development.
The political leadership cannot reach the black-first policy because of leaning too much towards the knowledge base of their technocrats. The knowledge base of the technocrats is to invite foreign investors, from America, EU, Britain and China. The presence of Joe Biden was celebrated.
The conference singled out availability and cost of capital as the obstacle to develop Africa’s infrastructure. The real concern must be availability of capital. Capital and loans are not the same. Capital cost little.
Loans cost much more and gobble the fiscal budgets of African countries. This is made worse by weak and fragile exchange rates.
The solution is to increase capital available to seed the citizens first, so that the level of tax collections increases dramatically, to start the journey into infrastructure development.
As citizens boom the global appetite to lend to and invest in Africa also increases. With more capital flows in, the loan interest rate lowers.
We have put a website www.organizecapitals.com to educate Global South countries, to use what is within their means at the least cost. Unfortunately, politicians do not read these things but wait for recommendations by teams of technocrats or advisors around them.
– CAJ News