Redrawing the map: Moses Sitati on Africa + Europe collaboration, narrative shifts, and cross-regional strategy

13 August 2025

Eastrise Group’s Kenya Country Director reflects on how Europe can become a more strategic partner to Africa, and why getting the narrative right is a global imperative.

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Africa is often framed through the lens of risk, but that framing comes at a cost. The continent loses an estimated $4.2 billion annually due to inflated borrowing costs and receives just 2% of global clean energy investment, despite holding immense potential for renewable energy leadership. Perception, as much as policy, shapes outcomes.

For Moses Sitati, Kenya Country Director at Eastrise Group, the issue is not whether Africa matters to investors and new market opportunities, but how the rest of the world chooses to see and engage with it.

Why is it important to reimagine how Africa and Europe partner?

We’re at an inflection point globally. Geopolitical stability is shifting, multilateralism is under strain, and new growth models are emerging. Africa cannot afford to be positioned as a passive recipient in that landscape. It has to be, and deserves to be, a strategic partner in shaping global outcomes. Africa needs to, and has to, articulate what it wants from the rest of the world whether at a country or regional level, and to create vehicles through which it can realise those outcomes.

That shift requires rethinking how partnerships work. This is not about aid. It’s about investment, enterprise, innovation – and how these can be mobilised in ways that are aligned with Africa’s priorities. 

Why are you looking to build business with Central and Eastern Europe in mind?

CEE countries have gone through seismic transitions – politically, economically, institutionally. Many were once recipients of aid and are now navigating their own development cooperation agendas. That lived experience matters.

For example, Estonia and Poland successfully leveraged development aid to support their post-communist transitions and EU integration. Poland used support from the EU’s PHARE (Poland and Hungary Assistance for Restructuring their Economies) program, together with USAID assistance, and World Bank/IMF loans to stabilise its economy, reform institutions, and become the regional economic leader that it is today. Estonia, with significant aid from Nordic countries and EU pre-accession funds, rapidly modernised its governance, embraced digital innovation, and built strong institutions – emerging as a global leader in e-government and a high-performing EU member.

For Eastrise, CEE is not an add-on or a replacement for existing Western business ties, it’s the backbone of our different approach. Our strategy is grounded in the belief that peer learning from CEE’s transformation can enrich how business is done on the continent, how organisations can improve their operations, how we can reshape existing investment and funding models to ultimately change how Europe engages with Africa.

Our focus is ultimately on building stronger businesses – to create growth, jobs for growing populations, and strengthen new trade ties. We believe that CEE offers under-explored opportunities for meaningful collaboration, rooted in shared histories of transition and innovation with Africa.

CEE countries offer practical, transferable insights in areas like public sector reform, digital infrastructure, and SME development. As they increasingly seek to diversify trade and investment beyond the EU core, Africa is emerging as a natural partner. We want to help shape those relationships intentionally, not opportunistically.

You’ve spoken about “new corridors” between regions. What do you mean by that?

Too often, Africa + Europe relations are filtered through frameworks built in the 20th century. What we need now are new corridors, of trade, knowledge, capital, and cultural exchange, that reflect today’s realities and tomorrow’s needs.

We’re talking about African climate tech firms exporting to Eastern Europe. About CEE manufacturers co-investing in food processing in East Africa. About shared innovation ecosystems in digital public infrastructure. These aren’t pipe dreams – they’re possibilities waiting for the right frameworks.

But to unlock them, we need trust. And trust is built not just through conversations or political summits, but through consistent, practical engagement. Especially when it comes to building strong business partnerships.

Where do you see as the biggest barriers to progress?

Narrative and visibility. Africa is still perceived as monolithic and high-risk. Yet markets like Kenya are driving digital transformation at a scale that rivals anywhere in the world.

Just one example: in 2023, a coup in Niger triggered a 40-basis-point increase in Kenya’s bond yields. These are countries thousands of miles apart. That’s not objective risk, it’s market bias. Contrast that with Europe, where investor uncertainty in one country often leads to safer rates in another.

We also face a fragmentation challenge. Investors say they can’t see the pipeline, but the pipeline is there. The challenge is aggregation and translation: presenting viable African ventures in formats that resonate with global capital.

The opportunity areas are broad, we are looking at linking businesses and investments across dimensions such as the source of capital, founder citizenship, technology and equipment origin, market focus, and supply chain integration, among others. We feel that businesses that align with these nexus points provide strong potential for cross-regional trade, innovation exchange, and joint ventures. It is also a practical lens for identifying and scaling high-impact, corridor-based business opportunities.

What is Eastrise doing to support more balanced engagement?

We exist to build bridges. That includes advisory work, cross-regional investment readiness, policy insight, and amplifying success stories that don’t usually make headlines. As I mentioned, trust is built through practical engagement and we are doing that by creating direct linkages between and across businesses and investors to remove information asymmetries that cause blind spots. 

We’re especially focused on connecting the dots between under-recognised regions whether that’s a fintech founder in Nairobi or an Agritech pilot in Budapest. Our thesis is that value is often hidden in the margins, and that real transformation happens when those margins meet.

What would a more strategic Europe–Africa relationship look like?

It would be multidirectional. Not just investment flowing south, but ideas and models travelling both ways. It would be grounded in data and built on mutual accountability. It would avoid extractive patterns and favour co-creation.

We’d see more venture builders and accelerators working cross-regionally. More student and researcher exchanges. More inclusive conversations about green industrialisation and the digital economy. And, crucially, more trust in African-led solutions.

We want this to be a conversation which is finally changing, where more partners – governments, funders, corporates – are recognising that Africa isn’t waiting to be helped. It’s already building the future. And it has a lot to offer the world, including Europe. 

We just need to listen and connect accordingly.

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The opportunities are here, the frameworks are emerging, and the trust is building. If you see your business playing a role in shaping a more strategic, multidirectional Africa + Europe relationship, we’d like to hear from you. Contact Eastrise Group to explore how we can work together and follow us on LinkedIn for more insights, opportunities, and stories from across these regions.