By Isaacnezer Njuguna
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, electric mobility is reshaping public transport. Cities such as Kigali, Nairobi, Dakar and Addis Ababa are deploying electric buses, while electric motorcycles are supporting last-mile transport in markets where two-wheelers are a major mode of mobility. Approximately 132,000 electric vehicles are in operation across Africa, and about half of African countries are engaged in assembling or manufacturing EVs and charging equipment. (UNEP, 2026).
Charging infrastructure, however, is still limited, and battery-swapping networks are developing alongside government incentives aimed at supporting the sector. That momentum is also finding its way into national policy. Some 31 African countries have included electric mobility in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, putting e-mobility on national climate and development agendas.
Deployment is running ahead of the finance and infrastructure needed to take the sector to scale. The recently approved USD 13.46 million from the Global Environment Facility for the Green Mobility Financing Facility for Africa (GMFA) could help address part of that gap. Led by the African Development Bank, GMFA aims to catalyse private investment in low-emission public transport across the region. The GEF funding is expected to help the Facility leverage up to USD 169 million for e-mobility.
The scale of the financing gap puts that commitment into perspective. The Africa E-Mobility Alliance estimates that scaling electric two- and three-wheelers alone will require USD 3.5 billion to USD 8.9 billion in financing (AfEMA Report, 2025). In light of that, the GMFA could serve as a model for attracting much larger pools of capital, using the initial USD 13.46 million to demonstrate how public climate finance can help unlock private investment in African e-mobility.
What readiness actually means for Africa
Put an electric bus on the road and you also need a charging system, a suitable depot, enough grid capacity, well-trained operators and often a dedicated lane. None of these pays for itself without a viable business model behind it. Kenya’s BasiGo displays this viability, running close to 100 electric buses that carry thousands of passengers daily, backed by USD 42 million raised to scale the fleet to 1,000 buses across Kenya and Rwanda.
A motorcycle rider switching to electric needs somewhere to charge or swap a battery nearby, as well as affordable finance to buy and maintain the bike. Even the charging infrastructure depends on suitable land, permits, a grid connection, tariffs that make commercial sense and enough riders using it to justify the cost. Africa does not need more electric vehicles just yet. It needs an ecosystem that lets the vehicles already on its roads operate at scale.
Readiness across the region is currently uneven, though there has been real progress on policy. Kenya’s National Electric Mobility Policy sets out strategies for EV adoption, charging infrastructure, local manufacturing, skills and standards development. Ethiopia has gone further with its e-Mobility Strategy and Implementation Plan 2025 to 2030, which maps out investment in charging infrastructure, public transport integration, private sector participation, local manufacturing and institutional coordination.
Having a policy or strategy is not the same as having an investment-ready market. Readiness involves creating a market where policy ambition can translate into real opportunities for commercial and private investors. That requires a regulatory and institutional landscape investors trust, enough demand and market insight to seize the opportunity, infrastructure and energy systems that can support new investment, clear roles for public and private actors, a pipeline of well-prepared projects, and business models that have been tested and can generate revenue.
Risk, not interest, is holding investors back
More often than not, this readiness gap is really a financing gap. Investment readiness comes down to whether the ecosystem gives commercial and private investors enough confidence to put money in, and most investors are not short on interest. What holds them back is risk.
Take an electric bus fleet: it may cost less to run over its lifetime, but the upfront price of vehicles and charging infrastructure is steep. A charging network may have strong long-term potential, but nobody knows for certain how much it will be used in a market this young. Battery-swapping, though it offers an attractive option for two- and three-wheelers, still asks investors to trust an unproven mix of demand, battery standards, technology and regulation, on top of the business model itself.
As such, many projects end up in an awkward space: too risky for conventional commercial finance, too commercial for grant funding, and too early-stage for institutional investors. E Co. witnessed this while supporting low-carbon urban transport investment in Zambia. During this assignment, E Co. was able to provide targeted support to address underlying financial risks, which is critical in ensuring promising projects move from concept to a bankable proposition. Blended finance can make a real difference here. Initiatives such as GMFA matter far more than the funding they provide. Concessional capital and technical assistance can reduce early-stage risk, strengthen business models, prepare projects and show that these investments can work commercially. The goal is to build a pipeline that commercial capital feels confident entering.
The success of blended finance should not only be measured by how much concessional money is deployed, but by how effectively it changes the risk-return profile of investments that commercial finance would otherwise overlook.
Preparing e-mobility projects for investment
Financing alone will not take Africa’s e-mobility sector from pilots to functioning markets. Demand has been proven. The challenging task is putting in place the infrastructure, regulations, business models and financial products that allow projects to operate at scale. Cities and governments still have to plan charging and battery-swapping infrastructure. Utilities need to prepare for new electricity demand, regulators need workable standards and licensing rules, and financial institutions need products suited to electric mobility.
E-mobility investments span transport, energy, land, digital infrastructure, manufacturing and finance. Adding projects to a pipeline is insufficient because each proposal needs rigorous preparation to become bankable. E Co’s project experience shows this.
In Zambia, E Co. worked with the government and African Development Bank on project preparation for low-carbon public transport, including e-buses. In Jordan, E Co. developed e-mobility projects covering policy, regulation, demonstrations and investment partnerships. And in Malaysia, we supported UNIDO to assess market readiness for emerging e-mobility technologies, engaging ecosystem stakeholders and potential investors to develop a national scale-up strategy, assess potential energy and emissions benefits, and translate these findings into an investment-ready GEF project concept. In these cases, the vehicles and the financing were never the hard part. Building the conditions around them was.
The race that matters now
GEF’s USD 13.46 million commitment to GMFA is small next to what Africa’s e-mobility transition still needs. Its purpose is not to cover the gap on its own, but to unlock a much larger investment market behind it. The continent now has to use initiatives such as this to steadily close the readiness gap, building and strengthening the policies, institutions, infrastructure and investable pipelines needed to take electric mobility from pilots to scale. A stronger e-mobility market is instrumental in cutting transport emissions, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and improve air quality in African cities.
