Dr. Yemi Kale, chief economist at African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), says Africa is entering a defining “build decade” in which digital infrastructure, trade technology and continental integration could reshape the continent’s role in the global economy.
Speaking at the Afreximbank Accelerator Programme Demo Day in Nairobi, Dr. Kale said geopolitical fragmentation, supply-chain realignment and rapid technological change were creating a rare strategic opening for Africa to move from the “margins of global value chains” toward becoming a major production and innovation hub.
“The future global economy is still being written,” Dr. Kale said. “And Africa must not merely adapt to it but must help shape it.”
Dr. Kale said multinational companies and governments were increasingly diversifying supply chains after disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and broader geopolitical tensions, creating opportunities for Africa to attract investment, manufacturing and digital infrastructure development.
Africa’s demographic growth, expanding urbanization, rising mobile penetration and vast reserves of minerals critical to the green-energy transition position the continent favorably, he said. Yet Africa still accounts for less than 3% of global trade while intra-African trade remains below 15% of the continent’s total commerce.
“For the first time in decades, the world is simultaneously searching for new production hubs, for new consumer markets, for new digital ecosystems, for new logistics corridors, and for new sources of long-term growth,” Dr. Kale said. “Importantly, Africa sits at the centre of that search.”
He argued that trade-tech firms are increasingly becoming the “connective infrastructure” of African commerce by addressing persistent bottlenecks including fragmented payments systems, expensive cross-border transactions, weak logistics coordination and limited access to trade finance.
Dr. Kale cited the role of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, or PAPSS, launched by Afreximbank to enable local currency settlement across African markets and reduce dependence on external currencies such as the dollar and euro.
“PAPSS represents far more than a payments platform,” he said. “It is foundational financial infrastructure for continental integration.”
The economist said Africa’s startup ecosystem was shifting from consumer-focused applications toward businesses solving structural economic problems in logistics, customs systems, SME financing, healthcare and agricultural supply chains.
According to him, innovation was becoming central to Africa’s economic transformation as digital systems helped the continent bypass longstanding structural constraints.
“Historically, African economies often depended excessively on commodity cycles or external financing flows to drive growth,” Dr. Kale said. “Today, however, an increasingly important domestic growth engine is emerging, rooted in digital services, financial innovation, entrepreneurship, platform economies, and technology-enabled productivity.”
Dr. Kale also urged African governments to accelerate regulatory harmonization and invest in energy, broadband and digital infrastructure to support the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
He described the AfCFTA as more than a trade agreement, calling it a “scale platform” capable of creating a market of more than 1.4 billion people with combined gross domestic product exceeding $3 trillion.
“The next generation of globally significant African enterprises will likely emerge not from purely national business models, but from companies designed from inception for continental scale,” he said.
Afreximbank, he said, is expanding beyond traditional trade finance into digital infrastructure, innovation ecosystems and continental payment systems as part of a broader push to support Africa’s economic transformation.
The lender’s accelerator programme focuses on startups involved in trade enablement, logistics modernization, digital commerce, supply-chain finance and artificial intelligence applications tied to cross-border trade.
“To the entrepreneurs gathered here today, you are not merely building companies,” Dr. Kale said. “You are helping build the architecture of Africa’s next economy.”
