The Assistant Director for FSD Africa in Kenya, Lucy Nyoike is one of the leaders featured in The African Power 7 Energy Elites 2025/26 magazine. In this podcast she provides insights into what Africa’s development ambitions mean for private sector capital investment. Nyoike reminds us that the continent is working on a variety of financial and investment initiatives that we haven’t tried out before, so a bit of patience is in order.
“We’re trying to come up with solutions that the continent need. No one else has done it before. So, essentially… it’s not really having clarity on what you need to do, it’s getting started on the work, figuring out what systems are needed and also learning while delivering on it…
“For the majority of the work that I have been involved in, be it the inaugural Africa climate summit or the Africa energy summit that was in Dar Es Salaam a couple of years back where we came up with the Mission 300, we really didn’t know what we trying to do… but there is the ambition.”
Trying to build credibility while building the runway and the solution all at the same time is hard when systems are changing all the time, but Nyoike think it is important to concentrate on leaving behind stronger institutions and resilient people.
Africa’s finance and investment landscape is unlike any other
When it comes to finance and investment, Nyoike doesn’t think of it as Africa facing a capital problem, as the money is available. The biggest challenge she sees is a lack of connection between the capital and the opportunity.
“We don’t have any shortage of bankable or investable ready projects, what the disconnect is, is the person defining the meaning of what’s bankable and the person who’s designing the solution are not in the same room.”
She goes to talk about perceived and actual risk; the necessity of consolidating data; currency risk; ticket mismatch; and reconciling ambition and reality of promises made.
