U.S.-Africa Business Summit 2024: High-Level Dialogue: Strategic Infrastructure Investment - Sustainable Growth

On Tuesday, May 7, 2024, Corporate Council on Africa hosted a dialogue concerning the continued need for sustainable core infrastructure investment throughout Africa as well as the Biden administration’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment (PGI). H.E. João Lourenço, President of Angola, initiated the dialogue by highlighting both American and Angolan investments into the Lobito Corridor, allowing Angola to collaborate more closely with countries connected thereby, including Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for joint development. Hon. Alice Albright, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, emphasized the need for regulatory reform to reduce limitations on private investment. Hon. Amos Hochstein, senior advisor to President Joe Biden for energy and investment, expressed his encouragement that energy-oriented and physical infrastructure are being developed jointly in a way that incentivizes private capital investment. Sanjeev Gupta of the Africa Finance Corporation agreed with Mr. Hochstein on the necessity for public-sector capital investment in order to decrease the risk of private investment, and Hon. Nisha Biswal of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation highlighted her firm’s emphasis on the mitigation of political and logistical risk as a means of encouraging this crucial private investment. Providing a partially contrary viewpoint, Admassu Tadesse, Group President of the Trade and Development, received applause for stressing the necessity for both increased risk appetite in the private sector and willpower in the public sector to blend American and African capital and generate the activity that previous panelists said is prepared to begin. Paul Sullivan, president of Acrow Bridge, presented his firm’s work in solving the issues that Mr. Tadesse mentioned by building connections between a range of stakeholders in partnership with the U.S. government, and he celebrated the agreement signed earlier in the day between the U.S. and Angola to build 186 new bridges throughout Angola. President Lorenço concluded with an affirmation that no stakeholder should be left behind as sustainable infrastructure continues to develop across the continent.