S&P proposes pooling financing to close infrastructure gap
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Business Day Nigeria
Illustrative image · Stanley Kissinger · Pexels · Licence PexelsAfrica must bring its infrastructure projects together on standardised platforms to attract international capital, S&P Global Ratings says in a report. The continent faces an annual financing gap of $60 billion to $100 billion, while official development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa fell by 26% in 2025, according to the ratings agency cited by Business Day Nigeria.
S&P Global Ratings is calling on African countries to move from financing isolated infrastructure projects to platforms capable of pooling several assets in order to attract more institutional capital, according to its report “From Project to Platform Financing: Scaling Up Investments in Africa Through Blended Finance”.
The annual financing gap for African infrastructure is estimated at between $60 billion and $100 billion by the African Development Bank. At the same time, official development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa fell by 26% in 2025 and is expected to decline by a further 12% in 2026, according to data cited by S&P Global Ratings.
Blended finance in Africa has reached around $10 billion a year, compared with $2 billion to $3 billion in 2015, a fivefold increase in ten years. Cumulative transactions over the period are estimated at between $80 billion and $90 billion, with 40% to 50% in West Africa, according to the report.
Activity remains concentrated in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal, which together account for 75% to 80% of the region’s blended finance transactions. S&P Global Ratings notes that the small size of projects, the complexity of financing structures and insufficient credit guarantees still limit access to institutional investors.
