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Infrastructure development in Africa has been given a major boost with the launch of the Ubuntu Initiative, a legacy G20 project that aims to transform project delivery across the continent.
The innovative initiative, rooted in the African philosophy of Ubuntu (“I am because you are”), sets out an Africa-led framework to translate the G20 Toolkit for Cross-Border Infrastructure into a programme of action.
It is one of South Africa’s pivotal contributions to drive intra-African trade and investment under the G20 Infrastructure Working Group, chaired by the National Treasury, which also acts as the co-chair of the G20 Finance Track.
This initiative serves as a platform for African governments and global partners to collaborate, share expertise, and unblock institutional hurdles to implement transformative projects, building on the G20’s infrastructure framework.
The toolkit aims to practically assist countries and regions overcome the major barriers to planning, financing, implementing and managing cross-border infrastructure. It was jointly developed by the African Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the World Bank.
Key elements include a revised pipeline for bankable, cross-border projects, tools to tackle institutional and regulatory bottlenecks, and an emphasis on innovative de-risking instruments, and measures to attract private capital.
The initiative also aims to integrate and scale instruments that are already in place and designed to bolster delivery. These include the NEPAD Infrastructure Projects Preparation Facility Special Fund and the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) to bolster cross-border infrastructure across Africa.
The NEPAD special fund is a multi-donor fund, hosted by the AfDB, that provides grants to African countries to prepare regional infrastructure projects in areas like energy, transport, ICT, and trans-boundary water.
Its primary goal is to address the lack of investment-ready projects by funding preparatory studies and activities, with the aim of attracting downstream public and private investment for projects.
The ICA is not a funding agency but an organisation that aims to catalyse and facilitate the financing of regional projects and programmes and overcoming technical and political challenges to building more infrastructure.
A Call to Partnership
Participants at the launch of the Ubuntu Initiative in the third quarter of 2025 included senior officials from 15 different countries, the African Union Commission, eight recognised AU regional bodies, and the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD).
“The Ubuntu Initiative is at once a statement of agency and a call to partnership,” said the National Treasury in a statement.
“It signals that Africa is leading and shaping its regional infrastructure and development agenda, presenting a coordinated, bankable pipeline of projects that turn vision into tangible development outcomes.”
The initiative rests on four foundational pillars, each designed to confront the continent’s enduring challenges of infrastructure development:
- Data: Updating Africa’s cross-border infrastructure gap, particularly in light of the shifting landscape following the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative aims to provide accurate, current information, essential for guiding evidence-based decisions regarding infrastructural investments.
- Pipeline Generation: By identifying transformative cross-border projects that warrant prioritisation and financial structuring, this pillar seeks to create a trustworthy and investable project pipeline capable of attracting private financing.
- Governance Concilium: This aims to enhance governance and capacity support through an expert advisory platform, designed to deliver comprehensive capacity-building assistance and ensure that resources are appropriately allocated and efficiently managed.
- Innovative Financing: The initiative emphasises the acceleration of project implementation via innovative financing models, including public-private partnerships and infrastructure bonds. Multilateral Development Banks are crucial in mitigating risks and rallying private sector investment.
The high-level focus on infrastructure underlines South Africa’s commitment to making its G20 presidency work for the continent more broadly, by setting up legacy programmes that will outlive its one-year hosting of the initiative.
It is also part of its stated aim to give Africa greater visibility and voice in the global environment to counter years of marginalisation by many other regions.
