Roads are some of the hardest infrastructure assets to finance they’re expensive, take years to build, and don’t generate revenue until they’re finished. Yet a growing track record of road and highway public-private partnerships (PPPs) across Africa shows that with the right structure, private capital is willing to take on that risk.
How These Deals Get Done
Most road PPPs work on a build-operate-transfer basis: a private consortium finances and builds the road, recoups its investment through tolls over an agreed concession period, then eventually transfers ownership back to the government. It’s a structure that shifts both the upfront capital burden and the construction risk onto investors — which is exactly why it requires investors willing to think in decades, not quarters.
Two Regional Examples
The N4 Toll Route, a 630-kilometer toll road concession connecting Pretoria, South Africa, to Maputo, Mozambique, was structured as the first cross-border transport PPP in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the International Finance Corporation acting as lead arranger on the roughly €230 million project. Commuters now save hours daily, and the corridor has drawn further private investment along its route. World Bank PPP Legal Resource Center + 2
More recently, Kenya’s Nairobi Expressway a 27-kilometer, six-lane toll road that opened in 2022 — became the country’s first major highway PPP, easing congestion in one of East Africa’s fastest-growing cities. Highways Today
Why This Matters for Cities
Roads don’t just move traffic they determine how a city grows. Every kilometer of well-financed highway unlocks new commercial corridors, housing developments, and business districts along its path. As African cities continue to urbanize rapidly, the firms and platforms willing to finance this kind of long-horizon infrastructure are effectively shaping where and how well the next generation of urban growth happens.