Wires, Roads, and Money

Goods need power, transport and a way to pay across borders. On all three, Africa is building the connective tissue of an integrated economy, and on all three, the gap between what exists and what is needed is the real story of this decade.

Around 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were without access to electricity in 2023 (IEA). The current trajectory does not close the gap: under the IEA's Stated Policies Scenario, 645 million people worldwide are projected to still lack access in 2030, about 85 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa. No amount of trade liberalization moves goods from factories that cannot run.

The response is Mission 300, a joint initiative of the African Development Bank and the World Bank designed to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030 (AfDB). The irony of the continent's energy position is stark: Africa holds about 60 percent of the world's best solar resources and about 30 percent of the minerals essential for renewable technologies, yet has received roughly 2 percent of global renewable energy investment over the last two decades (UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa).

Electricity moves goods; payment systems move value. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) enables instant cross-border payments in local African currencies, moving funds within seconds without relying on third-party currencies (Afreximbank). In its July 2026 announcement, Afreximbank reported that the network covered 28 African countries, with more than 190 commercial banks and fintechs connected. The same announcement reported that the Bank of Central African States, the central bank of the six-nation CEMAC zone, had joined, with operationalization work running through the end of 2026 and a pilot planned with the Central Bank of West African States.

Be precise about what PAPSS is and is not. Through participating institutions and supported payment routes, it can reduce reliance on third-currency payment channels. It is a payment system, not a common currency, and it does not by itself eliminate exchange-rate risk between African currencies.

A single African currency remains the hardest monetary step. The clearest test case is East Africa. The East African Community signed its Monetary Union Protocol on 30 November 2013, setting out progressive currency convergence, the harmonization of monetary and fiscal policies, and preparations for an East African Central Bank (East African Community).

A monetary union is one of the most demanding commitments sovereign states can make: it asks them to give up an independent monetary policy, coordinate fiscal policy, submit to common banking oversight, and accept common mechanisms for handling economic shocks that hit members unequally. Those are hard trade-offs, and every country that joins must judge them against its own circumstances.

For FedAfrica, the pattern across power, payments and currency is the same: Africa's states are building shared systems, a shared grid ambition, a shared payment rail, a shared market, while the continent's political structure remains divided among sovereign states. Our argument is that these systems are continental in scale, a grid for hundreds of millions of unserved people, a payment rail across dozens of currencies, a market of 1.5 billion, and that the politics should match what the infrastructure already is. Whether the wires, roads and money end up serving a continent that is connected but not united, or one that is both, is the question the next sections take up.