Continent / Scale2025
POPULATION, 20251.32B
WORKING AGE, 2025745M
URBAN ADDED / YR+20.7M
WORKING AGE ADDED / YR+21.7M
Next Step/The Build Decade
An intelligence enginefor what Africa builds next.
Powered by hundreds of thousands of data points and our proprietary algorithm and process.
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Or start with the nine forcesCapital / Flow2022-24
FDI INFLOW, 2024$43.5B
PRIVATE CREDIT / GDP29.4%
INVESTMENT / GDP23.1%
OFFICIAL AID, 2023$64.8B
Build / Production2024-25
WITHOUT POWER ACCESS44.9%
RENEWABLES ADDED, 2025+11.3 GW
MANUFACTURING / GDP9.6%
EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURE49.3%
LAGOS 17.2M PEOPLE, PORT AND POWER DEMAND COMPOUNDINGABIDJAN 6.1M PEOPLE, CORRIDOR TRAFFIC AND INDUSTRIAL ZONINGDAKAR 3.7M PEOPLE, GAS TO POWER AND CABLE LANDINGSNAIROBI 5.8M PEOPLE, COMPUTE, PAYMENTS AND GRID LOADCAIRO 23.1M PEOPLE, INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY AND TRANSMISSIONLUANDA 10.0M PEOPLE, RAIL EVACUATION AND MINERAL PROCESSING
The Thesis/01
While the world debates Africa,
Africa ships.
The argument about whether the continent will build has been overtaken by the fact that it is building.
You can see it before you can measure it. Cities are growing past the roads and pipes that were laid for them. Young companies are working around systems that do not work properly yet. Money is turning up in places it used to avoid. Governments are trying to keep pace with all of it. And more people are entering working age here than anywhere else on earth.
The numbers follow the same direction. Grids are being extended and rebuilt. Industrial capacity is moving closer to the raw material. Payments and compute are arriving faster than the regulation written for them. The capital following that is no longer development money. It is infrastructure money, priced.
The interesting part is not the announcement. It is what makes the thing possible: capital, execution, policy, technology, demand and the people willing to build.
A continent this large is not one story. It is thousands of systems being built at once.
How we work/02
Reading the continent
as one system.
A port is a credit story. A grid is a policy story. Read them apart and you read the continent wrong.
We bring together hundreds of thousands of data points, documents and live signals, then analyse how Africa's systems act on each other.
/ 01We combine, not summarise
The question is rarely whether Africa needs more infrastructure. It is which piece unlocks the others.
/ 02Several ways of seeing one thing
An economist, an operator, an investor and someone who knows what breaks on site ask different questions of the same facts. Where the answers split is usually where the constraint sits.
/ 03We look for what becomes possible
Which constraint is lifting. Which is about to bind. What that opens for whoever moves first.
The Forces/03
One continent.
Systems in motion.
These are the nine areas we watch. They are a lens, not a filing system for a whole continent.
FORCE 01Cities & InfrastructurePorts, roads, rail, water, housing and the urban systems around them. Scope, schedule, cost overrun, and who eats it.Explore →FORCE 02Capital & FinanceSovereign capital, DFIs, banks, private credit and local pensions. Where money is priced, and where it still refuses to go.Explore →FORCE 03Energy & ResourcesGeneration, grids, gas, renewables, mining and processing. Who gets power, at what cost, and how reliably.Explore →FORCE 04Technology & DigitalData centres, cable landings, telecom, payments and compute. The build-out that follows the power.Explore →FORCE 05Agriculture & FoodFarming, irrigation, processing, storage and cold chain. What is grown, what survives the journey, and who finances it.Explore →FORCE 06Climate & EnvironmentCoastal defence, water, land and carbon. The engineering that keeps cities dry and farmland working.Explore →FORCE 07Industry & ManufacturingRefining, industrial zones, local processing and supply chains. How far up the chain production actually moves.Explore →FORCE 08Markets & PolicyCurrencies, debt, consumption, trade rules and institutions. The conditions everything else is underwritten against.Explore →FORCE 09People & Human CapitalDemography, education, skills, work, migration and enterprise. Who builds the other eight, and who they are built for.Explore →
The last one decides the other eight.
The Shift/04
Not optimism.
A schedule of works.
Several changes are running at once, each on its own clock, each dragging the others along with it. Each reading below names the series it comes from. Where a figure is not yet sourced it says so.
ShiftReadingWhat decides itDirection
CitiesUrbanisation
3.58%urban growth / yr, 2025
Africa's urban population is compounding. Land, housing stock and municipal finance decide whether the growth is absorbed or improvised.
Compounding
PowerGeneration and grid
+11.3 GWrenewable capacity added, 2025
Renewable capacity grew 16 percent in a year. Power used per person still fell, so transmission and reliable offtake, not new capacity, are the binding constraint.
Building
CapitalFinancing structure
$508Bfixed capital formed, 2025
New pools of capital are entering old financing gaps. Pricing, tenor and currency risk decide which projects actually close.
Repricing
IndustryValue chains
19.4%manufactures share of exports, 2024
Manufactured goods are a smaller share of what the continent sells abroad than they were a year ago. Power cost, logistics and skills decide whether that reverses.
Slipping
DigitalCompute and payments
90.4mobile lines per 100, 2025
Compute, payments and connectivity are collapsing old constraints. Power availability and regulation decide where the load lands.
Accelerating
FoodFarming and processing
1,453kg cereal per hectare, 2024
Cereal yield per hectare is lower than it was two years ago. Inputs, irrigation and what survives storage and the trip to market decide the real total.
Falling
ClimateWater and coast
[VERIFY]population on exposed coast
Cities are growing on coastlines and floodplains. Sea defence, drainage and water supply decide what stays usable.
Pressing
PeopleWork and skills
+15.2Madded to labour force, 2025
More people reach working age here than anywhere else. Schools, training and the number of real jobs decide what that becomes.
Compounding
READINGS ARE CONTINENTAL AGGREGATES FOR SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA AND HIDE ENORMOUS VARIATION BETWEEN MARKETS. SERIES ID AND YEAR ARE SHOWN ON EACH ROW.
From the Field/05
Evidence, at
ground level.
The forces above are visible in specific places, on specific balance sheets, and in what they change for the people living next to them. A short list of what they currently look like up close.
Lagos, NigeriaCoastal reclamation and a new financial district built against a hard sea defence obligation.Sea defence is also the reason a neighbourhood behind it still has streets.Cities
Lekki, NigeriaRefining capacity at continental scale, and whether domestic pricing holds against export netbacks.Fuel that is refined here is fuel that is not bought back at someone else's price.Industry
Angola, DRC, ZambiaA rail corridor concessioned to move copper west, and whether volumes fund the rehabilitation capex.A corridor is not only tonnage. It puts towns along the line on a trade route.Industry
Benishangul-Gumuz, EthiopiaInstalled hydro capacity whose value now depends on transmission and regional offtake agreements.A grid is not only megawatts. It is a factory that can run a second shift, and the people it hires to do it.Power
Nairobi, KenyaCompute and payment rails arriving ahead of the grid interconnection they will need.This is the floor under companies nobody has started yet.Digital
EXAMPLES, NOT A PORTFOLIO AND NOT A TRACKING LIST. READ WHAT DECIDES EACH ONE
From the Founder/06
I grew up around businesses being built in places where the infrastructure was still being built too. Nothing could be assumed. You learned to ask what actually has to happen for a thing to work.
That question never left me. NextStep Africa comes out of it. I am interested in the systems, and in the people turning hard constraints into real businesses.
Ronald Chagoury Jr.
Founder, NextStep Africa / Lagos
The Brief/07
The NextStep Africa
Brief.
What the engine turns up, every fortnight. From Lagos.
- What moved
- The change that mattered, and the number under it.
- How it connects
- The systems involved, and what one does to another.
- What it turns on
- What has to go right, and who is already building it.
- What to watch
- One indicator, and when it resolves.
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From the founder's desk.
NextStep Africa / Lagos