I attended this event on 09/10/2025 at ME Hotel on The Strand, London and organised by Nigerian Law firm Stren & Blan Partners with the assistance Africa Legal. It was such a productive afternoon of learning and networking and highlighted insights which have helped me plan my visit to East Africa in January 2026 where I’ll be spending time with colleagues in Commcorde’s Dar Es Salaam hub office.
Key Takeaways:
> Investment capital for telecoms, industrial and energy infrastructure needs to be de-risked.
> Inflation across the African continent is easing, helping to drive this de-risking, as well as driving regulatory reform and tech infrastructure resilience.
> Investor confidence is therefore rising select African economies.
> Capital, compliance and connectivity are the main market trends.
> Currency flows are slowly improving.
> Liberalisation of markets across Africa is taking place which is speeding up electrification and reliable sources of energy for industry.
> This is helping the mining sector get power to mines in remote areas in countries like Zambia and Tanzania.
> Initiatives such as the cross-border energy producers’ alliance, Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP) is aggregating energy markets making sure that energy gets to industry wherever it is required.
However, some barriers to growth remain:
> Lack of harmonised cross-border regulations and regional rules.
> Domestic legislation often gets in the way of trade.
> Liquidity is an issue, and more deregulation needs to occur inside individual states.
> More energy transmission infrastructure must be built.
Next Steps:
As I said I’ll be visiting Tanzania and Zambia for three weeks in January, along with colleagues from COMMCORDE. We will be meeting with representatives from the telecoms, legal, mining and government sectors to highlight the role strategic communications and crisis response campaigns can play in overcoming these barriers.
We can help to open up economies and drive more investment into the key areas of capital, compliance and connectivity, while protecting individual and organisation reputations. If you would like to meet up either formally or just for an informal chat, do let us know.
My thanks for interesting conversations and informed debate go to the speakers, hosts, organisers and other attendees I met at this excellent event:
Andrew Skipper MBE
Paul Arkwright
Ozioma Agu
Bernard Oundo
Lucy Kavanagh
Amanda Burge
Kit Smith
Scott Cowan
Wendy Bampton
Africa Legal
Stren & Blan Partners
