“The UK is reconnecting with the world and doing trade differently”

John Humphrey, His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa

• “The UK is a major source of capital. For governments, getting the frameworks right is the way to mobilise private capital.”

• “If you look at how India progressed from business process outsourcing to software development and eventually to becoming home to some of the world’s largest tech consultancies, you’ll find that some of those strategies might also be applicable in the Mauritian context.”

• “Once you get beyond Silicon Valley, London is one of the major centres for tech, and venture capital investment.”

In an exclusive interview with BIZWEEK, John Humphrey, His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa, shares insights on the UK’s evolving trade and investment strategy for the continent. With a new government shaping fresh industrial and trade policies, the UK is committed to reconnecting with global markets and fostering a modern, mutually beneficial partnership with Africa, one that moves beyond traditional trade models to embrace innovation, investment, and long-term collaboration. Key sectors emerging in this strategy include education, which holds particular relevance for Mauritius, and renewable energy, where the UK is a major player. Humphrey states that investment in renewables goes beyond infrastructure – it’s about expertise: designing efficient grids, optimizing power distribution, and ensuring long-term sustainability. Beyond technology, mobilizing private capital is critical for Africa’s economic expansion, and the UK has a strong track record in public-private finance initiatives. For John Humphrey, creating the right legislative frameworks is also essential to attract long-term investors. As Africa continues to emerge as a global economic force, the message is clear: the UK is ready to do business – differently, strategically, and with a long-term vision. 

Interview: Rudy Veeramundar and Steeven Pumbien

Photography: Manoj Nawoor

You had a meeting with the Prime Minister of Mauritius, who also happens to be the Minister of Finance. Can you share the context of your visit to Mauritius and give an overview of your meeting with the Prime Minister and of other strategic meetings you’ve had so far? 

In terms of an overview for my visit, this is what I do. My role is His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa. So, my role is to support trade and investment between the UK and Africa, across the continent, based out of South Africa. A key part of that role is market visits, which allow me to get an understanding of the marketplace, and to learn about the government’s priorities there. I can then take that away and reflect that back to British businesses and British investors and say, ‘it looks like this is something that the government has created the right environment for, this is something you should be looking at, and then we can support you to do that business.’ That actually frames the conversations that I have with government ministers here, and also with business people. We’ve just come from a lunch where we’ve been meeting with the different business associations here in Mauritius.

What is the key message of the UK government to Mauritius for your visit here?

I think the key message at the end of the day is that we have two new governments that are very focused on economic growth. The key thing for us is to say where the places of mutual interest are, and where we can create mutual trade between us. I am not a career civil servant, nor am I a career diplomat. My background is in business, and I actually think business is sustainable. If you get good business relationships, it lasts. It doesn’t just last the length of a programme or programme funding. It can last a long term.

What are the biggest opportunities and challenges for UK businesses looking at Africa?

The opportunities are so many across Africa, and I think Africa is a continent of potential. You only have to look at the numbers to realise that. You have a large population, a population that’s growing, and a population that’s very young. The latest forecast is 25% of the world’s working age population will be in Africa by 2050. Then you have 60% of the world’s unused arable land, you have 30% of the world’s critical minerals, four maritime strategic choke points… There are so many aspects of Africa, if we talk in general, that create opportunities.

But the challenge is real. Moving goods around Africa is really difficult. You don’t have that logistics and transport infrastructure. You get your goods to the port, but then if you want to get them to another country, the cost of doing that is really significant. The level of intra-African trade is very low compared to other regions of the world. So, those are real challenges.

The difference is that Africa is 54 different countries, different economies, different political economies, and different arrangements between them in terms of trade. It’s quite a complicated environment to navigate. The opportunity is there, but there are really practical problems.

What are the key priorities of the UK’s trade and investment strategy in Africa?

To be honest with you, it’s about looking at where are the areas where the UK can be successful, and which can lead to economic growth in the UK. We have a new government. They are in the process of developing a new industrial strategy and a new trade strategy that goes with that. That will focus in on a relatively small number of sectors where the UK feels it has a very strong competitive advantage. One that would be very interesting here, in the Mauritian context, would be education. Another might be renewable energy.

How does the UK balance its trade engagement between large economies like Nigeria and South Africa, and smaller island nations like Mauritius and Seychelles?

The size of a country doesn’t necessarily relate to the size of the economy or the investment opportunity, and our total trade with Mauritius at the moment is about £1.4 billion. That’s significantly larger than many of our other trading partners in Africa. But, broadly speaking, we have a team of 110 people, we’re spread across Africa, we’re present physically on the ground in 19 different countries, and we operate a country sector matrix. We have people in-country who have connections in the local marketplace and understand how it works. We then have sector specialists who operate on the Pan-African basis, and the idea is that you bring the sector knowledge and expertise – whether it’s in renewables or healthcare or education – and then marry that with the country expertise to try and get the best possible economic outcome.

Are there any ongoing or upcoming trade deals that will further enhance UK-Africa economic relations?

UK already has agreements that actually cover a large percentage of the continent, whether those are called economic partnership agreements, particular bilateral arrangements or multilateral arrangements, but the UK also has its Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS), which is, I suppose, our version of AGOA. It’s different to AGOA, but it virtually covers all of the countries in Africa. What’s really interesting about DCTS is that it allows for the cumulation of value chains in an African context, without losing the benefit of tariff-free, quota-free access to the UK. This really supports the ambition of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). Coming back to the point I made earlier about low levels of intra-African trade, this tries to stimulate that trade. The UK is very much aligned, and we were the first country outside of Africa to sign an MoU.

Which sectors are currently attracting the most UK investment in Africa?

They’re all, to a greater or lesser extent, sort of apparent here. Education is a big area of the UK competitive advantage. We also have a lot to offer in healthcare and renewable energy. Not just renewable energy in terms of buying solar panels, a majority of which is not made in the UK. It’s the expertise, how you put these projects together, how you design your grid, and how you cope with the fluctuation. It’s about higher-end consultancy guidance on how you do things.

How can African governments and businesses position themselves to attract more UK investors? You already mentioned the need to solve the logistics problem. Is there anything else? 

I haven’t seen the 2024 figures yet, but according to the 2023 figures, the UK was the third joint largest holder of investment stock in Africa. It is one of only two countries whose investment stock in Africa has actually been increasing since 2018. There may be a perception that the UK isn’t a large investor in Africa, but actually, we are a very active investor on the continent, and the majority of that investment is corporate investment.

Generally speaking, we’re going through exactly the same process at the moment. Our government is thinking about how to make ourselves competitive. How do we make ourselves attractive as a base for companies to establish themselves and bring their operations to us, in the UK? How do we encourage people to invest?

My background is in business. I spent a lot of the early part of my career in product management. This is where you’re sort of looking at your competitors, understanding what features they are offering, the things that you can do that are unique, and that other people can’t do, and then building your competitive offer.

From my experience, if, as government, we create the right environment, the right regulatory environment, the right business environment, the investment will flow, the companies will come, and business will happen.

I’m not talking about total deregulation, but you need to think about yourself in a competitive world, and we’re doing that.

“The UK government is consulting on a new Africa approach, and trying to understand how to build a modern relationship that’s a mutual relationship.”

What role does public-private partnership play in strengthening UK-Africa economic ties?

Well, this is a topic and a half. The UK was one of the very first countries to introduce the concept of public-private finance initiatives. It’s really important. If you’re, for example, just going to focus on development funding, particularly in an African context, you’re really limiting the pool of capital that you can tap into. If you’re going to really tap into capital, you have to mobilise private capital. So, you want to tap into pension funds, into mutual funds, into all of those types of investment vehicles. You’ve really got to try and create an environment that attracts those. The PPP environment is really crucial for that.

The UK had a lot of the difficulties, at the outset, of not getting those things right. But we’ve learned a lot in that process. We can bring a lot of expertise and experience to help support other countries to get these regimes right, and you do need a legislative environment, particularly if you’re talking about projects that governments are involved in. For governments, getting these frameworks right is the way to mobilise private capital. If you really want to see markets and your infrastructure take off, you have to mobilise private capital. It’s such a bigger pool of money.

How does the UK plan to facilitate more collaboration between UK and African businesses?

By stepping away from our desks and actively engaging in various markets, meeting people, and fostering connections – whether through trade missions, exhibitions, government discussions, shaping trade policies, or facilitating major deals – we can create meaningful opportunities and drive progress. If Air Mauritius is buying new aircraft, we should, for instance, come and talk to them about that. There’s a lot of things to do, but it’s mostly about bringing people together and making sure that we understand each other. So, you understand our environment, we understand your environment, and then we can see where the connections are. A lot of it is knowledge.

How is the UK supporting the digital economy in Africa, particularly in areas like fintech and e-commerce? 

The UK, obviously, is a big financial centre, and fintech is a major focus for us. As a major financial player, as one of the largest capital markets in the world, with many major financial institutions, we’re a natural place to come to in terms of the development of new technology-based financial services and applications. We have a lot of experience in the regulatory frameworks that go around that, the sandbox environments that you need in order to test those things out. Beyond that, we’re a major source of capital. Once you get beyond Silicon Valley, London is one of the major centres for tech and venture capital investment.

What role does digital trade play in strengthening the UK-Africa commercial partnerships?

There are two ways of viewing digital trade. There’s trade in digital data, and that’s going to become increasingly important. For example, one of the things we were talking about earlier on today was the digital nomad regime here. If you look at how India progressed from business process outsourcing to software development, and eventually to becoming home to some of the world’s largest tech consultancies, you’ll find that some of those strategies might also be applicable in the Mauritian context.

One of the most successful companies in Africa, that people sometimes forget is fundamentally English, is Vodacom. Vodacom is everywhere. In one of my first engagements with Vodacom, when I first took this job, I remember the senior executive I was talking to at the time saying that some of their best data scientists are in South Africa, some of their best app developers are in Kenya, and that they had people who had joined them as juniors who were now executives in a global position.

So, you can think about it in a number of different ways. In supporting that sort of digital economy, there’s helping to guide how it might look, and there’s helping to fund it. There are actually companies that are actually doing it. In the case of companies like Vodacom, they’re providing the digital infrastructure, as well, that actually facilitates some of those things.

What many people may not realize is that M-Pesa, which is of course the huge mobile money in East Africa, largely came out of British innovation through what was the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which is now BII (British International Investment). So, I think that the UK has a real role to play in the whole digital event.

The slightly different take on digitalization is the digitalization of trade and the facilitation of trade. One of the huge successes of Trademark Africa – established by the UK, but now multilateral – has been the digitalization of trade corridors. That’s something that the AfCFTA are trying to replicate, and Trademark Africa are continuing to try and support. If you sign your paperwork digitally in Mombasa, it flows all the way through. So, you can think about digitalization in a broad way.

How does the UK support sustainable investments and climate finance initiatives in Mauritius and Africa? 

Renewables are a huge focus for us, and the UK is one of the key investors in the Just Energy Transition, for example, in South Africa. UK companies are active in the renewable energy space all over Africa. British International Investment is the UK development finance institution, and they invest in platforms which then focus on particular areas. There are two particular platforms I’m going to mention. One is called Globelec, which invests in power generation across the continent of Africa. The other one is Gridworks, which invests in the transmission infrastructure. There’s no point just generating power. You also have to distribute power as well, and one of the problems is our grids. Traditional grids are focused on centralized fossil fuel burning power stations. If you’re doing renewable energy, it’s a completely different model, and you have to operate it in a different way.

Gridworks is very much specialized in helping countries trying to find the funding vehicles, the models, and the public private partnerships to increase grid capacity in Africa with some key investments. Globelec is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, independent power producers in Africa.

What opportunities exist for UK businesses in renewable energy and environmental projects on the continent?

We’re continuing the conversation with renewable energy in a way, and it comes back to mobilizing capital. If you think about renewable energy investments, they have some really attractive characteristics for investors. Particularly things like pension funds. It’s an investment that has a long lifetime of annuity revenues. So if you’re a pension fund, for example, and you’re thinking about how you are going to pay your pensioners into the future, those sorts of long term investments are exactly the sorts of investments that you want to make. On both sides of the equation, we have to create the framework that allows that.

You need the power purchase agreements, the off-taker arrangements, the tariffs. You need all of those things. You’ll then find that the investment flows, because they are attractive investments. If something’s sustainable, it implies that it’s got long term life. The UK does have some vehicles that also support that.

I talked about BII, which is the UK Development Finance Institution, but we also have the UK Export Credit Finance Agency, UKEP, which is one of the oldest export credit agencies. What’s interesting about UKEP is that they provide guarantees which allow projects to access private capital, from banks, etc. What’s really interesting is that they have a long term horizon. They can be interested in 15, 20 or 25 year investments, whereas generally speaking, private sector capital won’t be. I think there’s a role for government, through those sorts of vehicles, to provide the frameworks for those long term investments.

How has Brexit shaped UK’s trade, and its relationship with Africa?

I think we’re reconnecting with the world. This is how I see it. We are responsible for our own trade and investment. We’re responsible for standing on our own two feet and setting our own strategy in the world. That’s reflected in the Trade Commissioner role. There are nine others like me around the world. We’re very much outward facing. I guess, in a way, we’ve always been an outward facing nation. We’ve always been a maritime nation. We’ve always been a nation that wants to trade and always a nation that’s committed to free and open trade. What we’re doing, in a way, is we’re turning outwards again, and reconnecting with the world.

Has the UK adopted new trade mechanisms to standardise African economies post Brexit? 

The first thing was to roll over the trade agreements that we have as part of the EU. When we were part of the EU, those were done at a trading block level. So, you start off by rolling those agreements over, but then they take on a life of their own, and they can develop independently. That’s very much what we’re in the process of doing.

The other thing is that it has given us the opportunity to launch our own developing countries trading scheme, which really supports the development of value chains in Africa.

“Renewable energy investments have attractive characteristics for investors. It’s an investment that has a long lifetime of annuity revenues.”

What are your key takeaways from your engagements in Africa so far?

Well, that’s a really broad question (laughs). For me, it’s really interesting. My whole background has been in business, and I’ve mainly been in the tech sector. I have exported to Africa and I have done business in African markets previously. I spent a reasonable part of my childhood in Africa as well, both in Nigeria and in Botswana. So, it’s sort of coming back to somewhere that I think holds a lot of importance for me personally.

With the sheer variety, the dynamism, the potential, what we all have to do is to try and make it a story, not just a potential that’s latent, but the potential that’s delivered.

Looking ahead, what are the most exciting opportunities for UK-Africa trade in the next five years?

We talked about education, health care, renewables. The agricultural potential in Africa is huge. In many ways, Africa benefited from the commodity super cycle in the early 2000s, but it didn’t really last. I think there’s a real opportunity with this transition, and the focus on critical minerals, to do it differently this time, to look at more value addition on the continent, and to look at building more diversified supply chains. For me, one of the most exciting questions is, “can we do it differently than perhaps we’ve done it in the past, and can we do it on a sustainable basis?”

How has your experience in both the private sector and public service shaped your approach as His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa?

Someone will have to tell me that when I get to the end of my term (laughs). For me, I think it’s fascinating. One thing I should say is that, and I genuinely mean this: I think everybody, at some point, should spend time in the private sector, and time in the public sector. You think differently, and your perspective on things is different. Bridging that gap is really interesting. I have to say – hopefully I am not saying anything I shouldn’t (laughs) – that those first eight to nine months of being in government are actually quite difficult, because it’s just a different way of working. I think that if there was more understanding, collectively, we’d all do better.

What excites you the most about the future of UK-Africa trade relations?

Just the sheer potential to work with you. As I mentioned before, the UK is really making an effort to reconnect, to do trade, and to trade differently. The government, at the moment, is consulting on a new Africa approach, and really trying to understand, from business, from African nations, and from the UK perspective, how to build a modern relationship that’s a mutual relationship. It’s hugely exciting. It’s just an amazing continent to travel around and see all the diversity. I think that if we can harness all of that and come back to the potential thing, and make it not just latent potential, but realised potential, that’s very exciting.

What are you taking back home from Mauritius?

Probably some rum (laughs). I’ve been told that I’ve got to take some rum with me. I haven’t tried any yet, so I think that’s what I’ll be taking home.