The projects, read closely

To illustrate the EU's interest in creating 'highways for critical minerals' to secure its demand, it is worth zooming in on the Lobito Corridor — an infrastructure corridor now supported by the Global Gateway connecting the DRC, Angola and Zambia. The Lobito Corridor links the mining areas of Katanga province in the DRC, home to more than 50 per cent of the world's cobalt reserves, while also passing the Copperbelt region in Zambia. International mining companies dominate these resource-rich regions. Historically, this corridor was one of the busiest transportation routes in southern and central Africa.

Regional efforts to revive the Lobito Corridor produced limited results. The project was resuscitated in late 2023 under the United States Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), a G7 initiative conceived in the context of responding to China's Belt and Road investments in Africa. The corridor consists of a railway connection between Angola, the DRC and Zambia mainly to secure good access to raw materials. Under PGII, the governments of Angola, Zambia and the DRC are upgrading the corridor with support from the US, the Africa Finance Corporation and the African Development Bank.

The EU has signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Lobito Corridor with the DRC and Zambia in cooperation with the US and other partners, and bilateral MoUs with the DRC and Zambia on raw-material value chains. G7 partners also signed an MoU with corridor partners during the first Global Gateway Forum in October 2023. Prominent investors with concessions include Trafigura, Mota-Engil and Vecturis.

US officials estimate the project will cost more than USD 1 billion. A breakdown of concessional financing from donors including the EU, host-government contributions, and private finance to be mobilised is not publicly available. Global Gateway's involvement is rooted in the EU's partnership with the G7's PGII: bringing projects to G7-based investors and commercial partners such as CitiGroup, rather than fostering local value and sustainable development for host countries. Privatised infrastructure models that compel Global South citizens and governments to pay expensive user fees offer not development investment but extractive rent.

A toll highway and rail link in Senegal, financed by AFD and the EIB and built by the French company Eiffage.

Local analysts, including FOSCII, note that fees of roughly €2 a journey make the road inaccessible for most Senegalese. The AfDB has found that lack of affordable public transport is a primary constraint on urban productivity in Dakar.

The project was not born of a participatory mobility plan. It fits the classic blended-finance model: a large, visible, revenue-generating project attractive to European financiers.

Undersea cables such as the Google-backed Equiano and the EU-supported Medusa, linking Europe to Africa.

Research from the World Wide Web Foundation and CIPESA warns of "digital colonialism." Control of data, IXPs and cloud infrastructure stays with non-African tech giants.

Without parallel investment in local digital ecosystems, Africa goes into debt to deepen an ecosystem it does not control.

Global Gateway funds promoting "climate-smart" agriculture for export crops in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has documented how such labels mask the consolidation of global agri-food chains — locking smallholder farmers into volatile contracts with European supermarkets.

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa argues these initiatives come with tied conditions — promoting European-certified seeds that displace resilient indigenous varieties.

The Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines and Health Technologies (MAV+) initiative in Rwanda.

As MenaFEM noted in its 2025 briefing, it relies heavily on pre-allocated EU health budgets and existing European agencies. The GG label adds a communications layer but little new capacity.

The rehabilitation of the Kariba Dam on the Zambia–Zimbabwe border.

The EIB publicly lists its initial approval for the funding in 2017. Its inclusion in Gateway catalogues is a transparent attempt to inflate the portfolio with projects that would have happened regardless.

Core Bus Rapid Transit Line 3 will receive €347.6 million in subsidies, most of it to acquire European electric buses on a 45 km route — when those resources would fund 333 km of road network Kenya desperately needs.

The Kenyan treasury is preparing tax incentives to lower duties on electric vehicle imports. Eventually the project is set to link Nairobi toward Kisangani, near some of the largest mineral resources in the DRC.

Owned by the state utility Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP), the Assela I Wind Project was fully financed by Denmark. The total investment of €146 million was supported by a €117.3 million loan from Danske Bank and an additional €28.7 million grant. The project is expected to generate 300,000 MWh of electricity — enough clean energy to power 400,000 households — and to offset 260,000 tonnes of CO₂ a year.

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy was awarded the EPC contract, with its Danish subsidiary controlling 60% of the project's development and the Spanish parent company the remaining 40%. The government hired Siemens Gamesa to install 29 turbines for €143 million. One of the conditions of the loan agreement is to give the project exclusively to Danish companies, according to Ashebir Balcha, CEO of Ethiopian Electric Power.

EEP also hired a consultant to supervise the project after floating a closed bid. For consultancy services, EEP considered two Denmark-based firms — COWI and SWECO — and awarded the contract to COWI. The pattern is familiar: public debt on the Ethiopian side, tied procurement that routes engineering, procurement and construction work back to European primes.

The Dakar–Diamniadio Toll Highway is the model that Global Gateway's PPP thesis is built on. A European concessionaire collects toll revenue on a 30-year horizon; the Senegalese state carries residual risk through availability guarantees and sovereign counter-guarantees.

For the median Dakar commuter, tolls are prohibitive. The highway therefore functions as an elite corridor while the public balance sheet absorbs the concession's downside.

Global Gateway explicitly replicates this structure across corridors 1, 2 and 3, and cites Dakar–Diamniadio as evidence that PPPs can deliver at scale in West Africa.

Ursula von der Leyen's own 2021 line — that it makes no sense for Europe to finance a road between a Chinese-owned mine and a Chinese-owned harbour — is precisely the risk the Lobito Corridor now runs. The rail is European-and-US financed, the concession is European-operated, but the refining sits in China, the UAE and Qatar.

The concession terms — 30 years, revenue captured by the operator, sovereign risk carried by Angola, DRC and Zambia — mirror the Dakar–Diamniadio template applied to bulk minerals rather than passenger vehicles.

Africa's exposure: over the 30-year concession horizon, the three sovereigns absorb both debt service and reduced tariff revenue from concessional treatment of the operator.

CIPESA analysis has consistently shown that Africa's fibre buildout, absent a parallel investment in continental cloud capacity and IXP peering, deepens dependence rather than reducing it.

Nairobi–Kinshasa is celebrated as a Global Gateway flagship for digital connectivity. What the flagship framing omits is that the ultimate beneficiaries of the traffic — Google and other hyperscalers — sit outside the corridor entirely.

The pattern replicates in fibre what Lobito replicates in minerals: infrastructure that widens the pipe but leaves value capture unchanged.

MAV+ is repeatedly cited as a Global Gateway showcase for green urban mobility in Africa. On paper it delivers electric buses, depots and digital ticketing to Kigali.

In practice, procurement is structured so that virtually all supply contracts flow to European primes. The concession is underwritten by a sovereign counter-guarantee: if ridership or fare revenues fall short, the debt sits on Rwanda's public books, not on the operator's balance sheet.

The project is celebrated in Brussels as evidence that Global Gateway 'delivers'. It is a clean example of the pattern the DIE report described in 2020: development instruments used to secure European economic interests.