The Case:
In 2025, Africa’s push to develop cross-border energy and infrastructure corridors moved from ambition to partial execution. Power pools, transmission lines, and regional transport links were increasingly framed as essential to unlocking scale, improving reliability, and supporting both energy transition and mineral-driven growth. The logic was clear: fragmented national systems could not meet rising demand alone. Yet as projects advanced, a persistent constraint emerged. The challenge was not financing or technical design, but the ability of multiple states and institutions to coordinate rules, timelines, and responsibilities across borders. Africa’s corridors revealed how integration magnifies both opportunity and institutional weakness.
The Facts:
At the start of 2025, several regional energy corridor initiatives entered active implementation phases. In Southern Africa, expansion efforts linked to the Southern African Power Pool focused on strengthening transmission capacity between Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. While financing for priority transmission upgrades was largely in place, progress depended on synchronized permitting, land access, and the operational capacity of national utilities—areas where timelines quickly diverged.
In East Africa, interconnection projects associated with the Eastern Africa Power Pool aimed to link generation capacity in Ethiopia with demand centers in Kenya and Tanzania. During the first half of the year, these projects faced delays related to compensation disputes, environmental approvals, and regulatory misalignment between national authorities. As a result, new generation capacity outpaced the ability of transmission networks to deliver power across borders.
By mid-year, similar coordination challenges appeared in transport and logistics corridors linked to energy and mineral exports. In parts of Central and Southern Africa, road and rail upgrades advanced within national segments but stalled at border interfaces, where customs procedures, overlapping mandates, and unclear cost-sharing arrangements slowed implementation. These bottlenecks reflected institutional fragmentation rather than engineering complexity.
In the second half of the year, political turnover and fiscal pressures in several corridor countries further complicated synchronization. Even where external financing and contractor capacity were available, decision-making slowed as priorities shifted. By December, Africa’s energy corridors were widely acknowledged as strategically essential, but progress remained uneven—advancing nationally while falling short of full regional integration. The binding constraint was coordination, not capital.
Why This Case Was Important in 2025
Africa’s energy corridors mattered in 2025 because they exposed the transition’s dependence on regional governance capacity. Infrastructure at this scale tests not only technical execution, but the ability of sovereign systems to align regulations, institutions, and stakeholder expectations over long timelines. The case illustrated a broader lesson: integration multiplies benefits, but it also multiplies risk. Where national institutions lack continuity or capacity, regional projects inherit and amplify those weaknesses. Africa’s experience showed that corridors can unlock growth only when coordination mechanisms are as robust as the infrastructure itself.