Africa’s leading development finance institutions, commercial banks, and trade actors are advancing a coordinated effort to support the continent’s transition to a low-emission industrial future. Meeting under the framework of the Africa Green Industrialisation Initiative (AGII) in Diani, Kenya, stakeholders reached a key consensus: the continent needs a shared platform to prepare, assess, and deliver viable green industrial projects at scale.
This move reflects a response to a persistent structural barrier. Across Africa, close to 80 percent of industrial and infrastructure projects fail to move beyond the feasibility stage. Most are held back by gaps in early-stage technical support, fragmented project design, and a lack of alignment between financiers and implementers. Only a fraction—about 10 percent—reach financial close.
In an effort to address this, the parties agreed to launch a joint project preparation and development platform that will consolidate technical capabilities and promote fit-for-purpose design. By building a more integrated approach to project development, African DFIs and commercial banks aim to reduce duplication, increase project quality, and accelerate access to finance for climate-aligned industrial ventures.
In parallel, discussions focused on the need to define and standardise what constitutes a “bankable” green industrial project in the African context. Institutions acknowledged the current inconsistencies in how projects are evaluated, particularly around risk, climate justification, sponsor capacity, and market fit. Moving forward, a shared investment framework will help bring clarity to project evaluation while aligning due diligence processes across financing institutions.
A third area of action agreed upon during the meeting was the creation of a digital investment platform under the AGII umbrella. This tool will catalogue emerging projects, provide visibility to financiers, and offer a shared space for assessing investment readiness. It is also expected to serve as a gateway for linking investors with early-stage developers, improving coordination across sectors and geographies.
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The AGII technical meeting was convened by the Office of the Special Envoy on Climate Change in Kenya in collaboration with the AfCFTA Secretariat. The initiative is grounded in the recognition that Africa’s green industrial transition must be supported by institutional mechanisms that are responsive to both financial and operational realities. While AGII has been positioned as a key driver of climate-compatible growth, this meeting marked a shift from broad ambition toward the mechanics of execution.
At a continental level, AGII is expected to complement the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by enabling supply-side readiness for intra-African trade. With market access already formalised under AfCFTA, attention is turning to the infrastructure, standards, and investment tools required to build functioning regional value chains. Recent work on Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) and harmonised standards by the AfCFTA Secretariat further supports this, laying the groundwork for cross-border trade in manufactured goods, energy systems, and climate-resilient commodities.
In a parallel track, the AfCFTA Secretariat and East African Community recently held a workshop on regional integration in the fisheries sector, highlighting the importance of inclusion and small-scale production systems. That workshop aimed to improve the participation of women and youth in aquaculture, fish trade, and value chain governance, reinforcing the point that any green industrial policy must also take into account equity, skills development, and market access for smaller producers.
As the AGII platform begins to take shape, the focus will now turn to implementation. Pilot phases for the project development platform are expected to begin later in 2025. Success will depend on whether institutions can maintain alignment, share data, and integrate lessons from previous infrastructure programmes that failed to scale. It will also require building trust among governments, financiers, and communities—particularly as large-scale industrial development intersects with land, energy, and employment.
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Africa’s green industrial future will not materialise through ambition alone. What is now underway suggests a more deliberate, structured attempt to close the gap between climate goals and bankable outcomes.
