South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, right, welcomes French President Emmanuel Macron on the opening day of the G20 Summit in Johannesburg Nov. 22, 2025.
South Africa’s deteriorating urban infrastructure could soon receive a significant financial boost, with France close to finalising a €100 million ($118 million) loan targeting the country’s struggling metropolitan areas, the French ambassador has revealed.
David Martinon made the announcement at an event in Johannesburg, saying the funds are intended to help cities overhaul service delivery systems, particularly in water management, waste services, and the energy transition. The prospective loan would complement the $925 million already committed by the World Bank to support South Africa’s National Treasury Metro Trading Services programme — an initiative designed to upgrade water and sanitation systems, electricity supply, and waste management in major cities.
The scale of the challenge is considerable. The programme targets urban areas home to about 22 million people, more than a third of South Africa’s population, spanning nearly 30,000 square kilometres. Service delivery in key metros, including Johannesburg and Durban, has declined sharply in recent years, leading to recurring power and water outages that have frustrated residents and deterred investors.
Johannesburg — Africa’s wealthiest city and home to an estimated 12,300 millionaires, 25 centi-millionaires, and two billionaires — alone needs an estimated 221 billion rand ($12 billion) to address its mounting infrastructure backlog, according to 2024 figures. The city’s contradictions of extreme wealth and crumbling public services underscore the broader urban crisis facing Africa’s largest economy by GDP, valued at approximately $410 billion.
South Africa has increasingly turned to international development partners to bridge the infrastructure funding gap. In April last year, the National Treasury signalled it would seek additional support from global development finance institutions, including France’s Agence Française de Développement, to supplement the World Bank-backed programme — a process now seemingly bearing fruit.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly framed infrastructure investment as central to the country’s economic recovery. “Infrastructure is the flywheel that our economy needs to boost growth and to create jobs. Infrastructure that is well constructed and maintained encourages investors to see our country as a great investment destination,” he said last year.
With urban decay posing a growing threat to South Africa’s economic competitiveness, the French loan, once finalised, would represent one of the more tangible expressions of bilateral development cooperation between the two countries in recent years.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah