Before financing a large agricultural project in central Africa, investors needed to answer a deceptively simple question: would there be enough water to sustain crops year after year?
In many projects on the continent, questions like this are hard to answer with confidence. When the underlying risk cannot be properly verified, uncertainty gets priced in, resulting in higher financing costs, delayed investment or projects failing to move forward altogether.
Alastair Bovim, CEO of environmental risk intelligence company Insight Terra, believes the answer is not more theory about Africa’s investment potential, but better use of real-world data.
“Too often, the cost of capital goes up because investors are asked to make decisions with incomplete information,” says Bovim. “If you can see what is happening in real-time, you can replace guesswork with evidence and make investment decisions with confidence.”
Why static due diligence is no longer enough
Traditional due diligence often relies on site visits, consultant reports and historic data. Those tools still have value, but they are snapshots. In fast-changing environments, they can quickly become outdated.
That matters in sectors such as agriculture, mining, water management, and infrastructure, where rainfall, water availability, asset performance and climate exposure can shift significantly over time. If investors cannot verify those variables, they price in a higher level of uncertainty.
“Uncertainty always carries a higher premium than measurable risk,” says Bovim. “The problem is not always that the project is too risky, but that the risk cannot be verified.”
What continuous monitoring changes
In practical terms, continuous monitoring means using satellite imagery, connected sensor networks and AI-assisted analysis to track real-world conditions in real-time rather than relying on a single report or site visit. For example, the Insight Terra platform can show whether sensors are transmitting, identify unusual patterns that may indicate changing environmental or operational conditions, and flag changes that may need attention.
That does not replace due diligence. It strengthens it. Over time, it creates a clearer picture of whether a project is performing as expected or whether assumptions need to be revisited.
Bovim says that it is especially important in investment decisions where small shifts can have big commercial consequences.
“AI becomes valuable when it helps people make better decisions about real-world problems, not when it simply generates more information. If you are financing a project that depends on water, crop performance or infrastructure reliability, you need to know whether the original assumptions still hold true,” he says. “That is where continuous visibility becomes valuable. It gives investment committees better evidence to work with.”
A practical example from agriculture
One example is Insight Terra’s work on an agricultural project in central Africa, where the central question was whether local natural water resources could reliably support crop production and long-term irrigation investment.
A one-off study could show that water was present on the day of assessment. Continuous monitoring can go further by tracking hyper-local rainfall, surface and ground water availability and seasonal variability at farm and field level in real time, rather than relying on broad regional averages, anecdotal experience, or historic assumptions. In this case, there was limited reliable regional data available, making it difficult for investors to verify long-term water security.
The point is not to remove risk altogether. It is to make the risk easier to measure.
Why this matters for African investment
Africa is often priced on broad assumptions. In many cases, that means investors are not just pricing actual operational risk but also the uncertainty of not being able to verify conditions properly. This contributes to what many refer to as the “Africa premium” – higher financing costs linked to perceived risk and limited visibility.
That uncertainty can become expensive. It can raise the cost of debt, slow down approvals, or push capital towards markets where the data is more readily available.
Bovim believes that better visibility can help shift that equation.
“If you can give investors more confidence in what they are backing, you can improve the quality of the investment decision,” he says. “That does not mean every project becomes bankable. But it does mean capital can move with greater confidence where the fundamentals are strong.”
Climate capital is becoming more selective
Kevin Dillon, co-founder of venture capital investment firms Atlantic Bridge and Africa Bridge, says the investment environment is also changing. He notes that climate attracted a significant share of African venture capital in 2025, but that the next phase of capital allocation may be less about broad thematic interest and more about measurable outcomes.
“The market is becoming more selective,” says Dillon. “Investors are looking more closely at whether climate-focused capital is translating into real resilience, real performance, and real returns. That shift should favour businesses that can demonstrate measurable outcomes.”
A broader case for data-led investment
The World Bank’s recent Nourish and Flourish report reinforces this view. It says digitalisation is reducing risk and transaction costs, and that tools such as remote sensing and machine learning can improve site selection, verify service delivery and lower due-diligence costs.
For Bovim, that is exactly the kind of shift African projects need.
“Better data can reduce perceived risk, improve access to capital, and support growth,” he says. “It is time to rethink how the continent is assessed, because capital moves more confidently when risk can be measured properly.”