Financing Strategic Corridors in Africa

During the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Week, the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) hosted a roundtable on how to finance the roads, railways, ports and power lines that connect Africa's mineral-rich areas to processing plants and global markets. ABD Group and Cybastion supported the event. CCA President and CEO Florie Liser moderated, with opening remarks from Thomas R. Hardy, Acting Director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), and Alyssa Pettus, Chief of Staff at the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM). The room brought together government officials from both sides of the Atlantic with development banks and companies. Among them were Liberia's Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Gbeme Horace-Kollie, and Jito Kayumba, Special Assistant to the President of Zambia for Finance and Investment, along with representatives from the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), Absa, Cisco and Anzana Electric Group.

Opening the discussion, Ms. Liser noted that minerals have little value if they cannot reach the market, and asked participants where projects tend to get stuck and what kind of financing could help move them forward. USTDA described how it funds early studies that help projects attract investors, and EXIM encouraged companies to approach the bank early. Absa noted that most available loans are too short-term for large infrastructure and called for more pension fund investment, while AFC described financing a large copper mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) together with its power supply and rail link to the coast. Zambia shared how it now allows power producers to sell electricity to mines and other buyers of their choice. The event included two signings. Liberia signed a letter of intent with Cisco and Cybastion to set up five digital skills hubs for women, and USTDA signed a grant with Anzana Electric Group to expand power networks in Zambia and the DRC that will serve both mines and more than three million people. CCA closed by noting that financing these corridors matters to the U.S. for supply chain security and to African governments for industrialization, and that both goals can be advanced together.

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Click here for photos from UNGA 2026.