KEY POINTS
- AFARA launched in Lagos targeting $1 billion to scale 50 female-owned energy businesses across Africa.
- Less than 1 percent of Africa’s infrastructure project finance currently reaches female founders and entrepreneurs.
- Projects with women in leadership deliver 30 percent better outcomes and two to three times greater development impact.
The numbers behind a new Lagos-based accelerator make the case before a single pitch is delivered. Just 3 percent of infrastructure capital in Africa flows to women-led ventures. Less than 1 percent of infrastructure project finance reaches female founders. And 600 million Africans still have no electricity.
AFARA launched last week at the J. Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History in Lagos, promising to change at least part of that picture. The accelerator aims to mobilize $1 billion and scale 50 women-led energy and infrastructure businesses across Africa over five years.
Behind it is Dolapo Kukoyi, an energy and infrastructure strategist with more than two decades of deal structuring across the continent. She said she built AFARA after watching the same absence repeat itself across financing tables. “Africa cannot wait,” Kukoyi said. “The continent faces a $2.5 trillion infrastructure deficit. We cannot close it without unlocking all of our human capital, especially women.”
What the program actually does
AFARA selects 10 female entrepreneurs each year. Each receives a strategic growth plan, investment readiness pack, investor-ready pitch deck and a structured data room, alongside mentorship and access to investor networks. This year’s cohort focuses on gas and power, renewables, clean energy access, transport and logistics, and digital infrastructure.
The pitch to investors is not built on ethics alone. Kukoyi cited research showing that projects with women in leadership deliver 30 percent better outcomes in service delivery and sustainability, and generate two to three times greater development impact. The argument AFARA is making is not about inclusion. It is about infrastructure performance.
Why the gap exists and what it costs
Women account for just 6 percent of registered business owners in Sub-Saharan Africa and hold less than 1 percent of large-scale energy project ownership, even as they bear disproportionate costs from energy poverty. Africa’s infrastructure deficit is eroding 2 to 4 percentage points of GDP growth annually, with 75 percent of projects failing to reach financial close.
AFARA takes its name from the Yoruba word for bridge. Kukoyi said the choice was deliberate. “Two decades structuring energy and infrastructure deals, I saw the same faces missing at most tables, the African female infrapreneur,” she said. “I want to be the bridge: from potential to project, from vision to financial close.”
The launch brought together founders, investors and policymakers around a core argument: scaling women-led infrastructure is not a diversity initiative. It is a prerequisite for closing Africa’s infrastructure gap.
