Travelling across Africa with the German foreign minister

Recently, our CEO Tobias travelled to Mauritania, Nigeria and South Africa as part of the official German delegation accompanying Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, alongside companies from Siemens to SMEs. For a company of our size, it was a striking place to work from, and it says something about where AI for infrastructure now sits on the political agenda.

The centrepiece for us was Abuja. Dr Abba Aliyu, head of Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency, and Tobias signed an extension and expansion of our partnership, witnessed by the National Assembly, the World Bank and ECOWAS. VIDA’s platform maps every community in Nigeria, its households, socio-economic indicators and the least-cost way to bring each one power. REA uses it to plan and allocate subsidies under the $750 million DARES programme, which targets electricity for 17.5 million people.

The joint statement puts public savings from better subsidy targeting at more than $100 million. Nigeria matters beyond Nigeria. Under Mission 300, the drive to connect 300 million Africans by 2030, REA is now sharing this data-driven approach with peer governments across the continent. And the trip showed the idea travels beyond energy: in Mauritania we discussed using the same platform to coordinate infrastructure planning generally, and in South Africa we had first exchanges on supporting a just energy transition and its job implications.

Good infrastructure decisions start with knowing what is actually on the ground. That is the business we are in.