IFC’s new gas projects will destroy Africa

As Africa faces deepening debt, climate shocks and energy poverty, the World Bank’s private-sector arm is quietly approving new fossil gas projects. 

Two investments backed by its International Finance Corporation (IFC) expose a dangerous contradiction at the heart of global climate finance.

Coming at a time when Africa is bearing the brunt of a climate crisis it did not cause, the IFC — the World Bank Group’s private-sector lending arm — is quietly moving to approve two new fossil gas–related projects on the continent. 

Framed as pragmatic, transitional and development-friendly, these investments instead reveal a troubling pattern: the continued prioritisation of fossil fuel infrastructure over people, renewables and long-term resilience.

One of the projects in question is the Sahara LPG project, a $100 million multi-country investment in new liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage terminals across Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania, paired with IFC-backed trade finance for fossil fuel distribution.

The other project is the Cap des Biches (CdB) gas conversion project in Senegal, which aims to convert a thermal power plant from heavy fuel oil to liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Taken together, these projects raise serious questions not only about climate alignment but also about transparency, consultation, debt and whose interests international finance institutions truly serve in Africa.

Gas by another name

The IFC has continued to promote fossil gas as a “transition fuel” for Africa, a framing that is out of step with both climate science and African realities. 

LPG and LNG are not benign stopgaps: they require long-term infrastructure, lock countries into volatile import markets and divert scarce public and private capital away from renewable energy systems that are cheaper, faster to deploy and better suited to expanding energy access for 600 million people on the continent living in remote rural communities.

The Sahara LPG project exemplifies this contradiction. The IFC plans to finance four new “greenfield” LPG storage terminals in some of Africa’s most congested and environmentally sensitive port and industrial zones — Tema, Apapa, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam — while simultaneously underwriting trade finance facilities that support the procurement, shipping, storage and distribution of LPG, LNG and other fuels across the continent.

This is not a marginal intervention. It is a regional fossil fuel logistics build-out. Gas by another name is still gas. The expansion of its infrastructure is still fossil fuel expansion.

Consultation as an afterthought

One of the most alarming aspects of these projects is how little information has been made publicly available and how late.

Communities living near ports, pipelines and power plants are once again being asked to accept major energy infrastructure with minimal disclosure, limited opportunity to engage and no meaningful say in decisions that will shape their environment and livelihoods for decades.

In the case of Sahara LPG, there is no evidence that country-specific, early-stage consultations have been conducted across all four host countries. 

Disclosure documents are technical, inaccessible and often released in formats and languages that exclude affected communities.

The cumulative impacts of expanding fossil fuel storage in already overburdened industrial zones — air pollution, safety risks, land-use pressures — are barely addressed.

In Senegal, the Cap des Biches gas conversion project is being advanced despite the nearest community being located just 500m from the plant. There is little clarity on whether residents were consulted before key project decisions were made or whether they were meaningfully informed about the safety risks associated with LNG infrastructure and pipeline dependency.

This approach runs counter to the IFC’s own Performance Standards, which require consultation to be timely, inclusive and iterative — not a box-ticking exercise in the eleventh hour.

The quiet power of trade finance

Perhaps the most insidious element of the Sahara LPG project lies in its trade finance component. By “risk participating” in large trade finance facilities arranged by commercial banks, the IFC can enable fossil fuel expansion without the scrutiny typically applied to project finance.

Trade finance obscures end use. It fragments accountability. 

It allows international financial institutions to claim alignment with climate goals while continuing to bankroll the fossil fuel supply chain through the back door.

For African countries already struggling with debt distress and balance-of-payments pressures, this model is especially dangerous. Fossil fuel imports — particularly LNG — are exposed to global price volatility, foreign exchange risk and long-term contractual obligations. 

Pakistan’s LNG crisis should be a cautionary tale, not a blueprint.

Lock-in at the worst possible time

Proponents of the Senegal gas conversion project argue that switching from heavy fuel oil to LNG will reduce emissions. But this framing ignores the bigger picture. LNG infrastructure is capital-intensive and long-lived. Once built, it creates powerful incentives to keep gas flowing, crowding out investment in renewables and storage solutions that Senegal and other African countries are already well positioned to scale.

Africa does not lack clean energy potential. It lacks political and financial support to deploy it at speed and scale. 

Every dollar channelled into new gas infrastructure is a dollar not invested in solar mini-grids, wind, battery storage, grid upgrades or energy efficiency — solutions that can deliver energy access without deepening climate vulnerability or debt.

Who is this development for?

Both IFC projects disproportionately benefit private companies and international financiers. Sahara Energy Resource Limited, Société Générale, ContourGlobal and KKR stand to gain from the IFC’s de-risking and capital mobilisation. African communities, meanwhile, inherit the environmental risks, safety concerns and economic exposure.

This is a familiar pattern. International financial institutions socialise risk and privatise profit, while invoking development rhetoric to justify fossil fuel expansion in the Global South. Similar projects would be politically untenable in the Global North.

Timing is not neutral

The timing of these disclosures matters. Information about both projects was released around the end-of-year holiday period, when many civil society organisations and community representatives are offline. Board approval dates in early February leave little room for scrutiny or challenge.

This is not transparency; it is procedural minimalism designed to move projects forward before opposition can coalesce. Civil society groups such as Don’t Gas Africa and The Big Shift Global have submitted letters outlining concerns from groups in Africa and globally.

Africa deserves better

Africa is not asking for charity. It is asking for coherence, accountability and respect. If the IFC is serious about alignment with the Paris Agreement, just transitions and sustainable development, it cannot continue to approve fossil gas projects under the guise of pragmatism, especially when cheaper, cleaner alternatives exist.

Development finance should be about expanding choices for countries, not locking them into outdated energy systems. 

It should prioritise people over pipelines, resilience over returns and the future over fossil fuel nostalgia.

The Sahara LPG and Cap des Biches projects are not isolated decisions. 

They are signals. And right now, the signal from the IFC is deeply troubling. 

Africa deserves an energy future that is clean, democratic and genuinely developmental — not one quietly mortgaged through gas contracts approved behind closed doors.

Karabo Mokgonyana is the energy co-lead at Power Shift Africa.