EP 5: We Can Fund the Mine: Why is it so Hard to Finance What Comes Next?

Synopsis

Cement is a system enabler - the essential foundation shaping the world around us. From houses and offices to roads and highways, it is the superstructure of urban society and key for renewable energy infrastructure.

Across Africa, vast limestone reserves are being transformed into cement, to meet surging local demand and close the continent's infrastructure gap. Despite the mineral abundance and market demand, developing the capacity to support this industrial transformation faces systemic constraints.

In this fifth episode of The Africa Hour Season 2, we explore capital finance: what it takes to fund the transition from raw extraction to high-value goods - competitively and at scale. In conversation with industry and policy experts, we analyse the structural challenges underlying the financial architecture of the cement industry and industrialization more broadly across Africa.

We examine Nigeria's pioneering cement industry, a success story of self-sufficiency, to draw out the critical insights and policy lessons it offers for starter industries elsewhere on the continent.

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Guests

Ebipere Clark is a seasoned consultant specializing in capital markets, energy and infrastructure sectors, climate action policy and finance. He is the Managing Partner at Frontier-Alpha LLP. His expertise in energy transitions, climate finance, and infrastructure development is supported by his pivotal role in the 2013 Nigeria electricity market privatization and commercialization. Ebipere's work focuses on integrating climate action into national development plans and legislation and on shaping policies for sustainable economic growth. He regularly advises governments, development institutions, and think tanks on energy, infrastructure, and climate financing and strategies.

Karabo Mokgonyana is an international trade lawyer and development practitioner specializing in climate and energy diplomacy. As the Energy Co-Lead at Power Shift Africa, she steers the organisation's energy programme and its Just Transition strategy. Mokgonyana leads diplomacy and public finance engagement with governments, diplomats, and multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, IMF, and African Development Bank. Her portfolio includes managing continent-wide campaigns, authoring policy briefs on critical energy transition minerals, and advancing development-justice frameworks to secure equitable investment pathways for the African green economy.

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