What holds Western investors back is less the risk itself than the lack of clarity around it. The rules exist, but they are rarely set out in a way that reassures. Intermediaries promise support they cannot deliver. Stories of losses travel from one investor to the next. That is how a reputation for danger takes hold, one the economic fundamentals do not justify. Coumba Diallo, Managing Partner of Peacock Capital Advisors Group, answers this distrust with a method, not a sales pitch.
Monde Economique: Africa now accounts for a growing share of global investment flows. How do you explain this enthusiasm, which still falls well short of the continent’s real potential?
Coumba Diallo: This interest is part of a wider global search for growth and returns, at a time when the big mature markets are struggling to offer the same prospects for expansion. Africa has considerable potential, driven by a young population, rapid urbanisation and vast, largely unmet needs in infrastructure, energy and housing. It is precisely this imbalance, between overwhelming demand and supply that is still embryonic, that creates the returns international investors are looking for.
But this appetite runs into a well-identified structural obstacle: the difficulty of presenting projects with the clarity and risk control that these investors are used to in their home markets. There is no shortage of capital, and no shortage of projects. What is missing is the engineering that turns an intention into a firm financial commitment. A project can look excellent on paper and still be impossible to finance as long as its cash flows, guarantees and exit mechanisms are not clearly documented. This gap between real economic potential and the maturity of the structuring explains, more than anything else, why investment volumes remain below what the continent could reasonably attract. Closing it is not a matter of convincing investors further. It is a matter of bringing method and rigour in early, from the moment projects are designed.
Monde Economique: You describe transparency about risk as the first condition. In practical terms, what does that mean for an investor based in Europe or the United States?
Coumba Diallo: This is not about governance or corruption in the sense people sometimes assume. Above all, an investor wants to know whether a project is profitable, what risks it carries and how they will get their capital back. Take a concrete example: we structured a 2,000-unit housing programme with a total cost of 25 billion CFA francs. The potential was real, but the project could not be financed as long as the cash flows were not clearly defined. Once the structuring was complete, financing could be raised through to closing, and then through to the delivery of the homes. It is this ability to make a project easy to read, with clearly identified cash flows and guarantees, that tips an investor’s decision.
Monde Economique: What role does your firm play in this chain, between African project sponsors and international capital?
Coumba Diallo: Our mission is to connect African projects with global capital, but matchmaking is never where our work begins. We come in early, at the structuring stage, well before we approach a single investor. That stage determines everything that follows: clarifying the project’s financial flows, identifying its risks and building the guarantee mechanisms that allow an investor to move forward with confidence.
When the partners already in our portfolio do not fit a project, whether in size, sector or risk appetite, we run a targeted search across a wider network instead of forcing a match that would not last. This approach makes particular sense today. We are seeing more structured interest from international investors than before, especially in strategic sectors such as energy and infrastructure, where investment cycles are long and the sums committed are large. These investors are now far more demanding about the quality of structuring and risk management than they were a few years ago, which reflects a broader professionalisation of the relationship between the continent and the capital markets. Our role is to meet that level of expectation. We act as a trusted third party that documents, secures and supports every stage of a project, from inception to closing, and we do not confine ourselves to simple intermediation.
Monde Economique: You mention the fear many European investors have of the African market. Where does it come from, and how does your firm respond to it?
Coumba Diallo: Many Europeans hesitate to commit to Africa because the rules of the game do not seem as clear to them as they are at home. In mature markets, an investor generally knows what to expect: a stable regulatory framework, established case law and proven means of recourse. In Africa, that clarity is often missing. The rules do exist, but they are rarely presented and documented in a way that reassures an investor who is new to the market. This uncertainty, real or perceived, is enough on its own to hold up investment decisions that would otherwise make economic sense.
On top of this legitimate hesitation comes a reputational problem that deepens the mistrust. Too many unreliable operators promise support they cannot deliver, and investors lose capital because they had no solid guarantees behind them. These bad experiences circulate, are repeated from one investor to the next, and end up feeding an image of risk that is out of proportion to the continent’s economic reality. Our role is to supply the guarantee that is missing, from initial structuring to closing, by setting out the risks clearly at every stage and documenting every commitment made. It is this rigour, far more than any reassuring speech, that turns an intention to invest into an actual commitment and rebuilds, project by project, the trust that is still too often missing between international capital and the African market.
Monde Economique: You have worked with American investors from the Harlem Business Alliance. What did you take away from that experience?
Coumba Diallo: In 2022, we supported more than twenty-five American investors across several countries in the region. That collaboration led to the signing of three contracts, from structuring to closing. These experiences confirm that rigorous, long-term support turns investment intentions into firm commitments, provided every stage of the project is documented as carefully as it would be in a mature market.
Monde Economique: What advice would you give a European executive who is thinking of investing on the continent for the first time?
Coumba Diallo: My advice would be to look not just for a project, but for a partner who can support you from start to finish. This is the most common mistake investors make when they discover the African market: they treat it as a matter of picking opportunities, when it is first and foremost a question of method and relationships.
A strong project on its own, without a solid support structure around it, exposes the investor to difficulties they cannot anticipate alone, whether these concern the reliability of projected cash flows, the real implementation timetable or the exit routes available if needed. That is why we help investors identify a structured project in the sector that interests them, then support them by setting out the risks precisely at each stage, from entry to closing and beyond when the project requires it. This continuity changes the very nature of the investment decision. It no longer rests solely on trust in a project sponsor, but on a framework that is documented and verifiable at every step. It is this end-to-end support, more than the financial opportunity or the headline return, that truly reassures a European executive and secures their investment over the long term in a market that is still new to them.
Find all our Interviews
