By Omar FaFa M’Bai
The most consequential discussions are often those that move beyond expressions of goodwill and confront the reasons opportunity is not translating into action.
That moment came for me during the recent UAE–Africa Dialogues IV: Shaping a Shared Future, held at the Capital Club in the Dubai International Financial Centre on 22nd September 2026. The dialogue brought together His Excellency Juma Al Kait, Acting Under-Secretary at the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism, and South Africa’s Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Dean William Macpherson, in a discussion moderated by Sanjeev “SG” Gupta. The conversation examined the future of UAE–Africa trade, investment, infrastructure and economic cooperation. The fourth edition of the dialogue was convened against the wider question of how private capital, infrastructure, technology and trade can shape the next decade of UAE–Africa relations.
Much of what was discussed was encouraging. The economic complementarity between the UAE and Africa is compelling. The UAE brings substantial capital, global connectivity, advanced logistics, technological capability, sophisticated financial markets and a remarkable record of moving from ambition to implementation. Africa brings natural resources, expanding markets, human capital, an increasingly youthful population and enormous opportunities in infrastructure, agriculture, renewable energy, manufacturing, tourism, logistics and technology.
But one intervention deserves particular attention. His Excellency Juma Al Kait spoke candidly about efforts by the UAE to engage African governments. He explained that approaches had been made to a number of African governments with proposals or opportunities for cooperation but that, in several instances, obtaining meaningful engagement or even a response had proved difficult. He contrasted that experience with engagements elsewhere, where approaches were more readily acknowledged and converted into structured discussions.
It was an observation that should concern every African policymaker, investment promotion agency and business leader. During the discussion, moderator Sanjeev “SG” Gupta also raised an interesting possibility that perhaps some of the hesitation arises from fear or caution.
That observation caused me to reflect more deeply on the issue. Perhaps what appears from outside as African reluctance is not necessarily a reluctance to engage. Perhaps, at least in some instances, it reflects a desire to ensure that engagement takes place on the right terms.
Africa has a long history of relationships with external powers, investors and institutions. Not all of those relationships have produced outcomes that Africans today would regard as equitable or sustainable. Natural resources have sometimes left African shores without creating corresponding industrial capacity at home. Major projects have occasionally produced infrastructure without sufficient skills transfer, local participation or lasting productive capacity. Agreements negotiated during periods of financial vulnerability have sometimes constrained governments long after the immediate need that produced them had passed.
It is therefore neither surprising nor inherently unreasonable that African governments ask difficult questions about sovereignty, strategic resources, ownership, national interest and the long-term implications of investment agreements.
There is also the unavoidable question of bargaining power. A developing economy sitting across the table from a capital-rich sovereign investor, multinational enterprise or global infrastructure operator may understandably wish to ensure that immediate financial need does not result in long-term economic disadvantage.
That caution should not be dismissed. But neither should caution become paralysis. There is an important difference between being careful and being unresponsive.
Responding to an investor is not the same thing as accepting the investor’s proposal. Entering a discussion does not surrender sovereignty. Acknowledging an approach does not bind a government to a transaction. Asking questions does not demonstrate weakness. Negotiating firmly does not require silence.
Indeed, strong governments engage precisely because they understand their national interests.
A government can say: we are interested, but these are our conditions. It can say: we require greater local participation. It can insist upon employment targets, environmental safeguards, technology transfer, domestic processing, transparent procurement and commercially fair allocation of risk.
What it should not do is leave serious approaches unanswered. Silence is not sovereignty. Delay is not strategy. But equally, speed without diligence is not development. That balance may be one of the most important lessons to emerge from the Dubai dialogue.
The scale of UAE interest in Africa demonstrates why the issue matters. According to the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism, Emirati companies invested more than US$110 billion in Africa between 2019 and 2023. The same ministry has continued to promote partnerships in areas including tourism, aviation, logistics, infrastructure and digital transformation.
This is therefore not a theoretical conversation about capital that may one day arrive. The capital is looking for opportunities. The question is whether African countries are institutionally prepared to convert interest into investable propositions.
Minister Macpherson’s contribution was particularly relevant in this respect. Infrastructure cannot be built by aspiration alone. Projects have to be prepared properly. They require commercially credible structures, predictable regulation, transparent procurement, realistic allocation of risk and institutions capable of implementation. The dialogue recognised precisely these requirements.
The financing challenge is substantial. The African Development Bank has estimated Africa’s annual infrastructure requirements at between US$130 billion and US$170 billion, with a financing gap of approximately US$68 billion to US$108 billion a year.
Africa plainly needs capital.
But investors also need something from Africa: confidence. Confidence that a letter will be answered. Confidence that the ministry receiving a proposal knows which institution must act upon it. Confidence that one agency will not contradict another six months later. Confidence that contractual commitments will survive changes in personnel. Confidence that laws and regulations will be applied predictably.
Confidence that a project announced at an investment conference actually has land, approvals, feasibility studies, an implementation structure and an accountable project owner behind it.
That is why the observation about responsiveness goes deeper than courtesy. It is really a question of institutional credibility. Investors compete for opportunities, but countries compete for investment. Capital has choices.
If one government takes six months merely to acknowledge an investment proposal while another provides an empowered contact person within days, begins technical discussions and clearly identifies the approvals required, it should surprise no one where the investor’s attention may eventually turn.
Yet this should not lead us to the conclusion that Africa must simply become more accommodating to capital. The more important evolution is from investment into Africa to investment with Africa. Those two expressions may sound similar, but economically and philosophically they are very different.
Investment into Africa can mean capital entering a country, acquiring an asset, extracting a resource, generating a return and eventually repatriating much of the value created.
Investment with Africa asks different questions. What will be built together? How many local businesses will become suppliers? What skills will remain when the investor eventually leaves? What technology will be transferred? Can raw materials increasingly be processed locally? Can African entrepreneurs participate in ownership? Can local financial institutions participate in financing? Can young Africans move beyond being employees to becoming engineers, managers, innovators, contractors and eventually investors themselves?
And can the investment connect an African economy to regional and international value chains rather than simply connecting a mine, farm or commodity to an export terminal? These questions are not anti-investment. They are what make investment sustainable.
Indeed, the Dubai discussion itself repeatedly returned to local value creation, industrialisation, supply chains, skills and human capital. Investment, the dialogue recognised, should help Africa process and manufacture more of what it produces, strengthen SMEs and create meaningful opportunities for its young population.
This is where the interests of the UAE and Africa can converge powerfully. The UAE has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in ports, aviation, logistics, renewable energy, infrastructure, financial services, digital technology and large-scale project execution. Africa needs precisely those capabilities.
Africa, meanwhile, offers what increasingly matters to the world: markets, resources, agricultural potential, renewable-energy potential, talent and demographic growth.
Neither side therefore needs a relationship based upon charity. What they require is a relationship built upon complementarity. The UAE does not need Africa simply to receive capital, and Africa should not view the UAE simply as a source of money. Each side has assets that the other can help multiply.
That is why confidence may ultimately matter as much as capital. African governments need confidence that partnerships will respect sovereignty, national development priorities and legitimate expectations of local value creation.
UAE investors need confidence that African governments will respond, decide and implement. The bridge between those two forms of confidence is institutional design. African countries could begin by asking a deceptively simple question: What happens when a credible international investor contacts our government tomorrow morning?
Who receives the approach? Who acknowledges it? Who coordinates the ministries? Who has authority to convene regulators? Who can say yes? Who can say no? And, perhaps most importantly, who is accountable if nothing happens? If answering those questions requires an organisational chart and several months of correspondence, the country has already identified part of its investment problem.
Investor responsiveness therefore needs to become measurable. Governments can establish identifiable investment contact points, internal response deadlines and senior officials empowered to coordinate across agencies. Investment promotion bodies should not merely market opportunities abroad, they should be able to shepherd credible investors through the domestic system.
Governments must also move from producing long catalogues of “investment opportunities” towards developing smaller pipelines of genuinely bankable projects.
There is a world of difference between saying that a country needs a new port, power plant, highway, hospital or tourism complex and presenting an investor with a project for which feasibility, land, regulation, projected revenues, environmental issues, procurement structure, risk allocation and government support have already been considered.
Africa does not suffer from a shortage of ideas. Too often, it suffers from a shortage of prepared projects. This point is particularly relevant to The Gambia. For us, the UAE–Africa conversation should not be something observed from a distance. It should be treated as a practical economic opportunity.
GIEPA already identifies agriculture, fisheries, tourism, manufacturing, energy and services among The Gambia’s priority investment sectors, while its investment materials also highlight opportunities in ICT, renewable energy, transport and value-added agribusiness. Significantly, in March 2026 GIEPA also hosted consultations with the World Bank’s Country Private Sector Diagnostic team focused particularly on tourism, fisheries and digital financial services.
These are not far removed from the very sectors currently attracting UAE interest across Africa. The opportunity therefore exists to make the relationship more deliberate.
The Gambia could develop a focused UAE-facing investment portfolio consisting not of dozens of general opportunities but perhaps five to ten carefully prepared projects of national significance.
Each should answer the questions an investor will inevitably ask: Who owns the project? What is required from the investor? What capital is needed? What is the revenue model? What approvals remain outstanding? What is the position on land? What incentives are legally available? What local-content obligations apply? What government support is contemplated? What is the implementation timetable? And who has the authority to move the project forward? That is how a country moves from saying “The Gambia is open for business” to demonstrating “The Gambia is ready for investment.”
State House, the relevant economic and trade ministries, Foreign Affairs, GIEPA and the Gambian private sector could also consider creating a coordinated mechanism for strategically important investment approaches from the Gulf.
It need not be another bureaucracy. Quite the opposite. Its purpose would be to ensure that a serious approach received by any one institution does not disappear between institutions.
Foreign Affairs can open doors. GIEPA can facilitate investment. Sector ministries provide policy and technical expertise. The private sector understands commercial realities. State House can provide strategic direction where major national projects require cross-government coordination.
The real value lies in connecting those functions. The Gambia should also recognise that being a small economy can, if properly managed, become an advantage. We may not compete with Africa’s largest economies on market size. But we can compete on speed, accessibility, coordination and quality of engagement.
An investor who can meet the right decision-makers, obtain clear information, understand the regulatory pathway and receive timely answers may value that institutional efficiency enormously.
Small states cannot always outspend larger competitors. But they can sometimes out-coordinate them. There is another lesson.
Governments should involve the domestic private sector earlier in discussions with major international investors. Too often, international investment is treated principally as a government-to-investor conversation. But lasting economic value is created when local businesses become contractors, suppliers, joint-venture partners and service providers.
The ultimate measure of an investment should therefore not simply be the headline amount announced at the signing ceremony. We should ask what remains in the economy ten or twenty years later.
How many Gambians were trained? How many local companies entered the supply chain? How many new businesses emerged? How much technology was transferred? How much processing moved onshore? How many exports were created? And how much of the economic value generated continued circulating within the country? That is the difference between attracting money and building an economy.
The UAE–Africa relationship is already developing in this direction. In April 2026, the UAE and the Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area discussed cooperation in infrastructure, digital infrastructure and public-private partnerships, describing UAE–Africa relations in terms of mutual trust, respect and shared prosperity.
The next stage should deepen that philosophy. Africa should not approach the world defensively, assuming that every investment proposal conceals exploitation. Nor should investors approach Africa as though the continent’s need for capital requires governments to accept whatever terms are offered.
Both approaches belong to an older relationship. There is perhaps a wider principle at stake here. Speaking before the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York on 24th September 2026, Ghana’s President, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, albeit in the broader context of human equality and the international order, offered words that resonate equally with the kind of partnership Africa should seek with the world: “No race is superior. No nation is inferior.” He later returned to the importance of engagement rather than confrontation, observing “I believe that dialogue can resolve even the most intractable of problems.”
Those words were not spoken about investment, but the principle travels well. If no nation is inherently inferior, then international economic relationships should not be conceived as relationships between benefactor and beneficiary, or between those who possess capital and those who merely receive it. They should increasingly be relationships between partners who each bring something of value to the table. Africa should approach those relationships with confidence rather than apprehension, while its partners should approach Africa with respect rather than assumption.
That is precisely why the emerging UAE–Africa relationship should be one of confident partners negotiating with confident partners Africa can welcome capital without surrendering sovereignty. It can move quickly without negotiating carelessly. It can protect national interests without closing doors. It can insist upon local value creation without making investment commercially impossible. And investors can earn attractive returns while contributing to the development of the societies in which those returns are generated.
The question-and-answer session at the Dubai dialogue ultimately brought the central challenge into sharp focus that goodwill is not enough. Potential is not enough. Investor interest is not enough. Countries require prepared projects, responsive institutions, credible information, empowered decision-makers and the capacity to convert discussion into implementation.
Africa possesses extraordinary potential, but potential is an asset only when it can be converted into opportunity. The UAE has capital, technology, infrastructure expertise, global connectivity and execution capability. Africa has resources, markets, talent and immense demographic and economic potential. The opportunity before us is therefore larger than attracting another round of investment.
It is to rethink the architecture of the relationship itself. Perhaps the question is no longer simply Why are some African governments slow to engage?
A more constructive question may be: What would give African governments greater confidence to engage and what must African governments themselves change so that serious partners have confidence to engage with them? Answering both sides of that question is essential. Because partnership requires reciprocity. Africa must answer the telephone. But it must also know what it wants to say when it answers.
And the UAE and other global partners must recognise that the strongest African partnership will not necessarily be the one that writes the largest cheque. It will be the one that leaves behind productive industries, stronger institutions, skilled people, competitive businesses and sustainable prosperity.
Perhaps, then, the next chapter of UAE–Africa relations can be captured by changing just one word.
Not merely investment into Africa. But investment with Africa. That is where confidence meets capital. That is where partnership replaces dependency. And that may be the bridge capable of taking UAE–Africa relations and countries such as The Gambia to an entirely new level.
The views expressed in this article are personal.
Omar FaFa M’Bai is a Legal Practitioner, a governance advocate, and a parent based in Dubai, UAE. He writes regularly on institutional integrity, leadership, and education across Africa, Middle East, and Asia.
