Burnham government no threat to UK investment in Africa, says BII
New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s administration is not a threat to the UK’s investment plans in South Africa and Africa but rather an opportunity to strengthen the nation’s resolve to invest in African development.
This is according to British International Investment (BII) CEO Leslie Maasdorp, who told Business Times that the oldest bilateral development finance institution in the world remains firmly committed to its 2026-2031 strategy for the continent.
“We have existed for almost eight decades now — 78 years to be exact. We have flourished over these seven or eight decades under very different administrations, Labour governments, Tory governments, and so on, coalition governments.
“There is a very strong commitment to development from the UK. There’s a very strong commitment to climate finance in the UK. None of that has changed in the past almost two years that I have been here.”
His remarks come after Burnham, as leader of the Labour Party, replaced Keir Starmer as prime minister in July after a continuing political crisis at the helm of the UK that has prevented every prime minister since the Conservative Party’s David Cameron from serving a full term.
Maasdorp said that while the UK now has a new government leader, there still remains a “very principled commitment to development” from the UK government, as the strategy of BII is fully endorsed and signed off by this government.
“There’s more continuity rather than change from a BII perspective. So, you might have different personalities in the cabinet, but nothing changes with regard to the commitment to the 2026-2031 strategy.
“Already, our foreign secretary has recently made a public statement about the centrality of climate and development to the UK’s foreign policy.”
He said Burnham has elevated development through a clear public pronouncement that he made after a week or two in office.
“We don’t see any adverse changes that will impact negatively at all. On the contrary, we see a strong, good commitment to the climate agenda and the development agenda coming from the government.”
Electricity generation in South Africa is unreliable due to ageing coal plants, a lack of power generation infrastructure, and rising demand, which is putting pressure on an already fragile system. However, recent regulatory changes mean that privately owned companies can sell electricity directly to commercial customers.— Leslie Maasdorp, British International Investment CEO
According to BII’s 2026-2031 strategy, BII and GuarantCo each provided $50m in guaranteed finance to South African energy trading company Etana Energy in 2024. The funding enabled the company to buy clean power from independent power producers, helping them launch new renewable projects and sell electricity to businesses.
“Electricity generation in South Africa is unreliable due to ageing coal plants, a lack of power generation infrastructure, and rising demand, which is putting pressure on an already fragile system. However, recent regulatory changes mean that privately owned companies can sell electricity directly to commercial customers.
“Through the guarantee, we are helping transform South Africa’s electricity system by supporting an independent energy trading service that previously did not exist. It is expected to unlock $500m in new renewable energy projects and add about 500MW of wind and solar. Since the guarantee was agreed, closed projects include two solar and two wind energy projects, easing pressure on the grid and accelerating South Africa’s clean energy transition.”
Maasdorp said a week ago in Tanzania he attended the Infrastructure Forum of Africa 50, which was a meeting of the shareholders, about 30 governments from Africa. BII’s strategic plan will see it deploy £8bn into all of its markets and £5bn into Africa.
“There are several heads of state there and lots of ministers of finance. And listening to the sort of tone of the dialogue in Africa, there’s significant focus today on looking at infrastructure through a regional lens.
“African economies [may be] too small individually to be interesting for the big energy or the big significant institutional investors. They want to do projects at scale. So whether it be the rolling out of fibre optics, for example, for digital infrastructure or whether it’s power infrastructure, people look at the world of infrastructure through that regional lens.
“So when we look at South Africa, when I speak to British institutions, they look at Sadc [Southern African Development Community]; they look at hundreds of millions of people rather than just South Africa, which is about 60-million people.”
At the opening ceremony of this week’s ordinary meeting of the Sadc Council of Ministers, Sadc executive secretary Elias Magosi said value-added manufacturing as a share of GDP declined from 11.3% in 2024 to 10.9% in 2025, underscoring the need to strengthen industrialisation and value addition.
“This challenge also presents an opportunity to intensify investment in productive sectors and strengthen regional value chains. Intra-regional trade recorded modest growth, reaching 20.2% in 2025, driven by manufactured products, fuels, machinery, vehicles and agricultural goods.”
He said that while this growth remains below pre-Covid-19 levels, it demonstrates the continued dynamism of regional markets and the potential for further expansion. Merchandise trade balance remained positive, albeit declining by $2.2bn to $27.9bn in 2025.