Why this is layered rather than listed
FX shortage→
imported inputs delayed→
utilisation falls→
unit cost rises→
shelf price rises→
demand falls→
utilisation falls further
These questions aren't independent. A currency problem in Part 1 shows up as a cost problem in Part 2, and shows up again as a survival risk in Part 3. Answering them in order shows you where the chain actually breaks.
Where this is built out today: WAEMU and CEMAC. That's where our source records are already assembled from primary regulatory instruments. The DRC is not built into our records yet, but that's a backlog item, not a coverage gap. Its central bank publishes its foreign exchange regulation directly and keeps it current, we've confirmed the actual instruments, we just haven't assembled them into this tool. Treat any DRC answer here as unverified for now, and expect that to change. East Africa, Southern Africa and North Africa are the same story: not yet assembled, not confirmed unavailable.
Deal context
Part 1 of 3
Can this even be done?
Four things that must all be true. If one fails, the project doesn't happen, no matter how attractive the numbers look elsewhere. We check these first so a bad answer here stops you early, not after the money is spent.
N1
FX access and repatriation structure
"A stable peg is not access to hard currency, and access is not permission to repatriate. Three separate questions, and most business cases answer only the first. In the CFA zone the peg holds and the risk is administrative. In a floating market the risk is price. Templates score them identically. They are not the same thing."
Hard currency share of cost base after localization *
Repatriation mechanism
Checked against the current central bank instrument?
N2
Energy and water
"Every plant model I have seen assumes grid power at grid price. Almost none carry the real cost of running on backup for the share of the year the grid is not there. For beverage, water is the second half of this question and it is usually not asked at all until the borehole yield comes in below spec."
Grid reliability at the proposed site *
Is self-generation cost in the unit economics?
Water availability and rights secured?
Grid seasonality exposure
N3
Critical imported input availability
"This is not the FX question. FX asks whether you can obtain the currency. This asks whether you can physically obtain the item and get it through the port. Enzymes, concentrate, additives, control electronics, a specific spare part. One unavailable component idles the whole line, and the business case never lists it."
Have single-point-of-failure imported inputs been identified? *
Spare parts and maintenance consumables
Customs clearance time for critical inputs at the port of entry
N4
Legal and regulatory feasibility
"Regulatory timelines in African markets are legal ceilings, not operational commitments. The gap between the statutory period and the observed one is the intelligence. And the question nobody asks early enough is whether the structure itself needs a competition clearance that nobody has budgeted time for."
Production and operating licences identified *
Competition or merger clearance required?
Land tenure and site permits
Foreign ownership restrictions in this sector
Part 2 of 3
Is it actually worth doing?
Five things that trade off against each other, a weak answer in one can be offset by a strong answer in another. This is usually the part a business case already covers well on paper. It's also the part least often checked against reality.
E1
Consumer affordability and price point reality
"The binding constraint is not what the consumer can afford per month. It is what they can pay in a single cash transaction today. Pack size is the real variable, not price per litre. When a government exempts beer from an excise increase on the grounds that it is a mass-consumption product, that is the state telling you where the affordability line sits."
Target retail price, local currency *
Basis for the price point
Pack format strategy
Elasticity tested at the threshold?
E2
Route to market and transport cost
"Stated national coverage is the claim with the largest gap between what is said and what is true. A distributor present in ten regions may hold real depth in two. The question is never how many regions. It is what share of volume moves through the top two cities, and what cost per unit looks like once it leaves them."
Partner's stated national coverage *
Volume concentration in the primary city
Transport cost per unit
Corridor exposure
E3
Fiscal position: tax, tariff, excise, incentives
"The wedge that makes local production pay is almost never the headline rate. It is in the tax base, the input exemption, and the tariff line. In Cameroun the excise base for an import is the customs value plus the duty, while for local production it is the recommended price. Same nominal rate, different burden. That is the kind of thing a rate comparison misses entirely."
Duty on imported inputs after localization *
Excise regime and base
Packaging-specific taxes
Incentives relied on in the case
E4
Local input and packaging supply economics
"Localizing production while remaining structurally dependent on one imported component does not retire the risk. It relocates it. And where the only domestic supplier of your packaging is owned by the group that also owns your largest competitor, you have not solved a supply problem. You have created a strategic one."
Primary packaging: local availability *
Key raw input local sourcing
After localization, what share of input cost is still imported?
E5
Demand scale, volatility and forecastability
"A plant is built around utilisation, and utilisation is built on a forecast. In markets where household income moves with a harvest, a commodity price, or an election cycle, the forecast error is not noise around a trend. It is the trend. Plants fail because demand was too volatile far more often than because it was too small."
Basis for the volume forecast *
Demand volatility drivers assessed?
Capacity versus demonstrated volume
Customer concentration
Part 3 of 3
Will it still make sense in five years?
This is where the biggest losses actually happen. A project that clears parts 1 and 2 gets approved, then fails years later on something nobody checked: a change in headquarters priorities, the partner's own capability, or a policy shift. So each question here comes with something to keep watching, not just a one-time answer.
R1
Partner capability and claim verification
"The partner is the counterparty and the primary source at the same time. But the asymmetry runs both ways: they know the informal channel, the practical customs position, and the labour relations better than headquarters ever will. The task is not to distrust them. It is to identify which claims are load bearing and check those specific ones."
Load-bearing claims originating solely with the partner *
Partner's category track record
Partner's own risk exposure understood?
R2
Operational readiness and capability transfer
"This is not engineering, which is why it belongs here rather than with the consultants. It is whether maintenance culture, production planning, and quality systems arrive with the equipment. Plants rarely fail suddenly. They degrade, because the two expatriates who held the knowledge rotated out and nothing was written down."
Technical staffing plan *
Maintenance regime
Work permit and expatriate quota position
R3
Strategic commitment and exit cost
"The best partner in the market cannot compensate for headquarters deciding the region is no longer strategic. And the harder the asset is to exit, the higher the bar the decision should have cleared. A line that can only make one product, on land that cannot be repurposed, is a very different commitment from one that can be sold or redeployed."
Asset redeployability if the project is wound down *
Corporate strategic horizon for this region
Exit or unwind mechanism with the partner
Local financing available for working capital?
R4
Political, policy and trade bloc stability
"Trade bloc membership is treated as furniture until it moves. Three WAEMU states left ECOWAS and stayed in the monetary union, which means the currency assumption held and the customs assumption did not. Any case built before that change and not revisited is carrying an error nobody has looked for."
Incumbent with documented regulator relationships? *
Trade bloc and tariff regime verified as current?
Compliance and AML exposure of the jurisdiction
Security exposure on the distribution corridor
Returns a layered memo and a monitoring schedule. Not a recommendation.
Localization assessment
Monitoring schedule
A point-in-time assessment cannot see the failures that matter, because they happen after approval. Each dimension below carries an indicator to track, a threshold that should trigger reassessment, and a cadence. This is the part of the output that has a life beyond the decision meeting.
Indicator
Reassessment trigger
Cadence
What this assessment does not cover
Plant engineering, capacity design, equipment specification
Outside competence and deliberately excluded. Note the distinction from R2: whether the workforce can operate and maintain the plant is an investment question and is assessed. Whether the line is correctly specified is an engineering question and is not.
Legal structuring, tax opinion, contract drafting
Requires local counsel. This identifies what to ask them about, not what they should conclude.
Construction management and environmental impact assessment
Specialist disciplines with their own qualification requirements.
Development impact, additionality, and ESG safeguards
Relevant to a development finance institution rather than a corporate, and held as a separate module so that adding it does not dilute the commercial assessment.
If this surfaced something the business case had not tested, I would want to know which layer did it. If it missed something that matters at your level, that is more useful still.