West African investors identify $10bn in projects ahead of regional investment summit

West African business leaders and financial institutions have identified 26 investment projects worth more than $10 billion across the region, as they seek to turn decades of regional integration pledges into businesses, industries and jobs.

The projects were selected from 170 submissions covering more than 10 countries, according to Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella, special envoy for the West Africa Integration and Investment Summit (WAIIS). He said the portfolio could reach $15 billion or more by the summit in Sierra Leone on November 17 and 18.

“We received 170 project submissions and have selected 26 real projects worth more than $10 billion from over ten countries. By Freetown on 17–18 November, we expect that portfolio to reach $15 billion or more,” Yumkella said.

“This is not a one-off. We will keep tracking whether the investment flows arrive and what makes them happen.”

Read also: ECOWAS, China seek deeper cooperation in security, infrastructure, digitalisation

The figures were announced after the second meeting of the WAIIS Private Sector Advisory Board in Lagos on October 13. The meeting was co-chaired by Julius Maada Bio, president of Sierra Leone, and Tony Elumelu, chairman of Heirs Holdings, with Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in attendance.

The initiative seeks to mobilise private capital for projects across four priority areas: energy trade and industrialisation, strategic minerals, agribusiness and digital transformation. Its organisers say the aim is to connect investors with viable projects and identify the policy changes and financing needed to move them forward.

Bio said West Africa had not made enough progress towards building a common market despite the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) being in existence for 50 years.

“We must bring together a common market that serves the more than 400 million people we have,” he said. “That is why I am mobilising the private sector in West Africa and around the world to come together and get serious about a free market in West Africa.”

Read also: ECOWAS integration at risk without respect for court judgments, says Faye

He urged board members to move beyond advocacy and work directly with prospective investors, match them with projects and identify gaps that could prevent investments from proceeding.

Elumelu said the initiative reflected Bio’s determination to make his leadership of ECOWAS count by bringing business leaders together to support regional development.

“We are happy that our political leaders are beginning to bring all of us together so that we can be much more impactful,” Elumelu said. “Today is about the talk that leads to action. This is consistent with our aspirations to create jobs for our young people.”

He added that governments must provide policy certainty, efficient regulation and security to give investors confidence to commit capital over the long term.

The board includes leading businesses and financial institutions, including the Africa Finance Corporation, Afreximbank, Africa50 and the Central Bank of West African States. Their participation is intended to help connect projects with funding and support the development of investments that can operate across national borders.

Samaila Zubairu, president and chief executive of the Africa Finance Corporation, said energy security, food security, minerals and demographic change were creating opportunities for Africa, but regional integration would be needed to take advantage of them.

“Plans succeed only when they outlast leaders. We are committed to sustaining this initiative well beyond the summit,” Zubairu said.

Oliver Alawuba, group managing director and chief executive of United Bank for Africa, pointed to the financing of the Dangote refinery as an example of what domestic and regional capital could achieve.

“Dangote Refinery’s success shows what domestic capital can do: Nigerian and regional banks financed it,” Alawuba said. He added that UBA, which operates in nine West African countries outside Nigeria, was ready to mobilise resources for viable regional projects.

Mahmud Hassan, group chief economist at Dangote Group, said inadequate electricity remained a major obstacle to industrial development in West Africa. Representing Aliko Dangote at the meeting, he said the ECOWAS Business Council planned to develop a regional power corridor through the Power ECOWAS Initiative, financed by domestic capital.

“So that where one country’s value chain stops, the next country’s begins,” Hassan said.

Afreximbank also highlighted the need to prepare projects properly before they can attract investors. Kudakwashe Matereke, the bank’s director of regional operations for Anglophone Africa, said it set aside up to $5 million per transaction for project preparation and worked with partner lenders and local banks to expand the pool of investment-ready projects.

Sanwo-Olu said governments had a responsibility to create the conditions for businesses to invest across borders, including the free movement of goods and services.

Read also: Shettima charges new ECOWAS Commission team on regional unity and integration

“When we create that single platform where we can integrate and work together, then investors can come in,” he said. “At the end of the day, it is business to business. As political leaders, our role is to create that environment and give the assurances that we are ready, and we are ready for business.”

The inaugural WAIIS summit will take place on November 17 and 18 at the Julius Maada Bio International Conference Centre in Lungi, Sierra Leone. It is expected to bring together heads of state, investors and business leaders to advance projects in the four priority sectors.

The central test will be whether the projects identified can secure financing and move into implementation. The organisers say they intend to track investment commitments beyond the summit and advance projects through to 2030, rather than treat the meeting as a one-off event.