An accelerator designed to move women-led energy and infrastructure projects from concept to financial close has launched in Nigeria, with ambitions to mobilise $1 billion and scale 50 female-owned businesses across Africa over five years.
- +Africa accelerator targets $1bn to back women-led energy projects
AFARA, unveiled at the J.
AFARA, unveiled at the J. Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture & History in Lagos, enters a market where the numbers are stark. Just 3 percent of infrastructure capital in Africa flows to women-led ventures.
Less than 1 percent of infrastructure project finance reaches female founders. Meanwhile, 600 million Africans remain without electricity, and infrastructure deficits are eroding 2 to 4 percentage points of GDP growth annually, with 75 percent of projects failing to reach financial close.
“Africa cannot wait,” said Dolapo Kukoyi, the energy and infrastructure strategist behind the initiative. “The continent faces a $2.5 trillion infrastructure deficit. We cannot close it without unlocking all of our human capital, especially women.”
Kukoyi, who brings more than two decades of deal structuring across the energy and infrastructure sectors, said she built AFARA after observing a persistent absence at financing tables across the continent.
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.
The program selects 10 female entrepreneurs annually, providing each with a strategic growth plan, investment readiness pack, investor-ready pitch deck, and a structured data room, alongside mentorship and visibility into investor networks. This year’s cohort will focus on gas and power, renewables, clean energy access, transport and logistics, and digital infrastructure, covering greenfield developments, brownfield scale-ups, acquisitions, concessions, and divestments.
The pitch to investors is not purely ethical. Kukoyi cited research suggesting projects with women in leadership roles deliver 30 percent better outcomes in service delivery and sustainability, and generate two to three times greater development impact overall.
The accelerator takes its name from the Yoruba word for “bridge”, a deliberate choice, Kukoyi said, that reflects the program’s intent to connect female founders to the capital and systems that have historically excluded them.
“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 convened founders, investors, and policymakers, with organisers framing the program’s core argument plainly: that scaling women-led infrastructure ventures is not a diversity initiative; it is a prerequisite for closing Africa’s infrastructure gap.
