Zakaria Dosso

Zakaria Dosso is Managing Director of the Africa Energy Investment Corporation (AEICORP), the financial and investment arm of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO). AEICORP is a development finance institution established by APPO member countries on 26 January 2019, following the reform of the APPO Fund, with authorised capital of US$1 billion. Headquartered in Cotonou, Benin, it mobilises capital for oil and gas, power, alternative energy and mining projects across Africa. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Africa Energy Technology Centre (AETC).

An accountant and engineer by profession, Dosso was Deputy Finance and Accounting Manager at the Ivorian oil and gas company GESTOCI before serving as Executive Director of the APPO Fund from August 2015 to January 2019. When the fund was reformed into AEICORP, he was selected to lead the new institution. He has argued that African countries must pool their resources and efforts to develop their energy sectors, and that financial independence is the key to the sector’s future, and in 2022 he set out plans for AEICORP to raise equity from African countries, financial institutions, energy companies, sovereign funds and pension funds.

Dosso leads the mobilisation of contributions from APPO member countries for the capitalisation of the Africa Energy Bank (AEB) and played a key role in the negotiations with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) that led to its establishment. Nigeria, Angola, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire had made capital contributions by the end of 2025, and in February 2026 he represented AEICORP in Abuja when APPO and Afreximbank received the keys to the bank’s headquarters from the Government of Nigeria. The AEB has a projected initial capital of US$5 billion.

His focus areas include mobilising African capital, structuring sustainable financing for energy projects and supporting investment frameworks that strengthen domestic capacity and local participation across the energy value chain. In 2025 AEICORP signed a memorandum of understanding with GESPETROGAZ-CI in Abidjan to provide technical and financial support to local enterprises in the hydrocarbon sector. In 2026 Dosso took part in the Nigerian Local Content AfCFTA Energy Summit in Lagos and was a speaker at ARDA Week, on sustainable finance for Africa’s downstream industrialisation, and at EGYPES.