When paint manufacturers, raw material suppliers and industry regulators gathered in Nairobi for the Africa Coatings Expo, the conversations extended well beyond product showcases and trade stands.
At the centre of discussion was a question with implications for public health, industrial policy and the future of construction across the continent: how quickly can Africa’s coatings industry complete its shift towards safer, cleaner and more technologically advanced products.
“The industry has made tremendous progress in eliminating lead from decorative paints, but sustaining this transition requires an enabling policy environment,” said Joel Gathu, chief executive, Hermosa Paints Ltd.
It is a statement that reflects both genuine achievement and unfinished business. Kenyan manufacturers, like many of their peers across the region, have invested heavily in reformulating products to meet international safety standards.
Yet the cost of doing so, without corresponding policy support, has left many producers competing on an uneven playing field against cheaper, imported alternatives.
“Tax incentives would reduce production costs, making locally manufactured lead-free paints more affordable and allowing Kenyan manufacturers to compete fairly against imported products.”
“An enabling business environment is critical for the continued growth of Kenya’s manufacturing sector, ” he added.
“Policies that encourage innovation and reduce the cost of doing business will attract investment, stimulate industrial expansion and create more employment opportunities.”
Those remarks offer a useful entry point into a much larger story. Africa’s paint and coatings industry is no longer defined solely by decorative finishes for homes and offices.
It is becoming a technical, health-conscious and increasingly export-oriented sector, shaped by construction growth, environmental regulation and a new generation of manufacturers determined to compete on quality rather than price alone.
Africa’s coatings industry is evolving
For decades, the African paint sector was dominated by decorative products — the emulsions, gloss finishes and undercoats used to paint homes, schools and commercial buildings.
That category remains significant, but it no longer defines the industry’s growth trajectory.
Manufacturers are now investing across a much broader spectrum: sustainable and low-VOC (volatile organic compound) coatings formulated to reduce indoor air pollution; lead-free decorative paints that meet international health standards; and a fast-growing category of industrial and protective coatings designed to extend the lifespan of infrastructure exposed to Africa’s varied and often punishing climates.
Smart coatings — products engineered to respond to heat, moisture or mechanical stress — are also entering the conversation, even if their commercial footprint remains modest for now.
High-performance coatings for marine environments, mining equipment and heavy industry are becoming a more visible part of manufacturers’ portfolios, reflecting demand from sectors that cannot afford premature material failure.
Innovation matters here for a straightforward reason: construction across Africa is diversifying.
Where paint was once judged mainly on colour and coverage, specifiers today ask about durability, chemical resistance, environmental impact and long-term maintenance costs.
Meeting that demand requires research and development investment that many manufacturers, operating on thin margins, have historically found difficult to justify — which is precisely why the policy environment Gathu describes matters so much.
Why lead-free paints matter
The push to eliminate lead from paint is not a cosmetic regulatory exercise; it addresses a well-documented public health risk.
Lead exposure, particularly among young children, is linked to irreversible neurological and developmental harm, and old, deteriorating lead-based paint remains a recognised source of exposure in many buildings.
Schools, hospitals, residential housing and public buildings are precisely the spaces where safer formulations matter most, because they are occupied daily by the people most vulnerable to lead’s effects.
Kenya adopted a 90 parts-per-million lead limit for paint, aligning with the threshold recommended by the UN Environment Programme’s Model Law and Guidance for Regulating Lead Paint and already in force in several African markets.
Reformulating to meet that standard is not free — it requires alternative pigments, driers and additives, often sourced internationally, which raises production costs.
That is the crux of the affordability argument manufacturers are making: without support to offset these costs, compliant local paint risks losing shelf space to cheaper, non-compliant imports, undermining the very health objective the regulations were designed to achieve.
For architects, developers and contractors specifying materials, the guidance is straightforward — verify that products carry documented compliance with national lead limits, particularly on projects involving schools, healthcare facilities and housing where long-term occupant exposure is a genuine consideration.
The construction boom is reshaping demand
Africa’s infrastructure pipeline is a significant driver of coatings demand. Housing programmes, road construction and rehabilitation, airport and port expansions, railway corridors and the steady rollout of logistics and industrial parks all require coatings suited to specific, often demanding, applications.
Structural steel on bridges and rail infrastructure needs corrosion protection capable of withstanding decades of exposure. Port and marine infrastructure requires coatings resistant to salt, humidity and constant mechanical wear.
Industrial parks and factories need floor coatings and protective systems that can handle heavy machinery, chemical spills and continuous traffic.
This is a different demand profile from decorative retail paint, and it rewards manufacturers who can supply technical, project-specific solutions rather than generic products.
As governments and private developers continue investing in transport corridors,special economic zones and manufacturing hubs, the coatings segment tied to infrastructure — rather than decoration — is likely to drive much of the sector’s growth over the coming decade.
Sustainable construction is driving innovation
Green building principles are gaining traction across African construction markets, driven partly by developer interest in certification, partly by growing environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations among investors and financiers, and partly by rising energy costs that make efficient buildings more commercially attractive. Coatings are a small but meaningful part of that picture.
Low-VOC formulations improve indoor air quality, a factor increasingly considered in green building assessments and directly relevant to occupant health and comfort.
Reflective and insulating coatings can reduce a building’s cooling load, an important consideration in tropical and sub-Saharan climates where air conditioning drives significant energy consumption.
Durable, long-lasting coatings also support sustainability goals indirectly, by reducing the frequency of repainting and the material waste repeated maintenance cycles generate — another reason innovation, rather than volume alone, is shaping competitive positioning across the sector.
Beyond lead-free paints
The most significant technical evolution in the sector extends well past the lead-free decorative category.
Reflective roof coatings, which lower surface temperatures by redirecting solar radiation, are increasingly specified on industrial and commercial roofing to cut cooling costs and extend roof life.
Heat-resistant coatings serve a similar purpose, protecting equipment and structures exposed to sustained high temperatures.
Anti-corrosion coatings remain one of the most commercially important categories for African markets, given the scale of steel infrastructure — bridges, pipelines, storage tanks, transmission towers — exposed to humidity, coastal salt air and industrial pollutants.
Waterproof coatings protect building envelopes, basements and water-retaining structures from moisture ingress, a persistent challenge in regions with intense seasonal rainfall.
Antimicrobial coatings, formulated to inhibit bacteria and mould growth, are gaining relevance in healthcare facilities and food processing plants.
Fire-resistant coatings, applied to structural steel and other building elements, are becoming a more prominent consideration in commercial and high-rise construction as building codes mature.
Together, these categories illustrate a sector moving from single-purpose decoration towards multi-functional protection — coatings that actively contribute to a building’s or asset’s performance, safety and lifespan, rather than simply its appearance.
Manufacturing opportunities for Africa
Local paint manufacturing stands to benefit from several converging trends. Rapid urbanisation is expanding the addressable market for both decorative and industrial coatings, while regional infrastructure investment, from transport corridors to industrial parks, sustains demand for protective and technical products.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) offers, in principle, a route for competitive manufacturers to access buyers across the continent without the tariff barriers that have historically fragmented regional trade.
Reduced dependence on imported paint — and, further up the value chain, on imported raw materials and pigments — would strengthen the resilience of national manufacturing sectors and retain more value within local economies.
For countries pursuing broader industrialisation agendas, a competitive domestic coatings industry supports both import substitution and job creation.
Realising this opportunity depends heavily on the policy environment manufacturers like Gathu are calling for.
Tax incentives on compliant, locally produced lead-free paints; investment support for reformulation and technical upgrades; and consistent enforcement of product standards at ports of entry would collectively make it easier for local manufacturers to scale and compete, rather than cede ground to lower-cost, and sometimes non-compliant, imports.
Challenges facing manufacturers
The opportunities are real, but so are the constraints. Imported products, in some cases produced at lower cost or without equivalent regulatory compliance, continue to compete aggressively on price.
Raw material costs remain a persistent pressure point, particularly given that many specialty pigments, resins and additives used in lead-free and high-performance coatings are not locally produced and must be imported, exposing manufacturers to currency fluctuations and global supply chain disruptions.
Energy costs add further strain, particularly for manufacturers running energy-intensive processes. Taxation, absent the incentives manufacturers are requesting, keeps production costs elevated relative to imported alternatives.
Logistics — moving raw materials in and finished products out, often across long distances and underdeveloped transport networks — adds cost and complexity.
Meanwhile, the technology investment required to develop advanced coatings, from low-VOC formulations to protective and smart coatings, requires capital many manufacturers must weigh carefully against thin margins.
Environmental compliance, while necessary and broadly supported by the industry itself, adds its own costs of testing, certification and reformulation.
None of these challenges are unique to the paint sector, but together they explain why manufacturers frame policy support not as a favour, but as a condition for the industry’s continued transition towards safer, more sustainable products.
Africa-wide perspective
Kenya’s experience is part of a broader continental pattern. Nigeria has maintained a 90 ppm lead limit for paint since 2016, supported by an industry roadmap and a national steering committee overseeing implementation.
South Africa significantly tightened its own regulations in 2025, lowering the permissible lead threshold from 600 ppm to 90 ppm and introducing mandatory compliance declarations and labelling requirements for paint sold, manufactured or imported into the country.
Tanzania and Ethiopia have also adopted the 90 ppm standard, while Rwanda has been working to implement the same limit as part of a wider East African Community regional standard.
Elsewhere on the continent, regulatory approaches vary considerably, reflecting differences in institutional capacity, industry structure and enforcement resources.
The UN Environment Programme’s Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint has continued to support African governments in developing model legislation, and regional workshops have brought together regulators from across West and East Africa to share experience on enforcement and industry engagement.
The overall trajectory, while uneven, points in a consistent direction: more African markets are moving towards internationally recognised lead limits, and manufacturers are increasingly expected to demonstrate compliance rather than simply assert it.
This regulatory convergence matters for manufacturers with regional ambitions. A producer that has already invested in reformulation to meet Kenya’s or South Africa’s standards is better positioned to serve neighbouring markets adopting similar thresholds — provided trade and tax frameworks make cross-border supply commercially viable.
Future outlook
Africa’s coatings industry is entering a period in which innovation, sustainability, public health and manufacturing competitiveness are becoming inseparable from one another.
The decorative paint of a decade ago — judged primarily on colour range and price — is giving way to a more technical product category, where compliance with lead limits, environmental performance and durability increasingly determine which manufacturers win specification on major projects.
Returning to Gathu’s remarks, the path forward is reasonably clear, even if not simple to execute. The industry has already done much of the hard work of reformulating away from lead.
What remains is building the policy architecture — tax incentives, consistent enforcement and a genuinely enabling business environment — that allows compliant local manufacturers to compete fairly, invest further in innovation, and scale into regional markets opened up by frameworks such as AfCFTA.
For contractors, developers and specifiers, the implications are practical as much as strategic: coatings choices made on today’s housing developments, roads, ports and industrial facilities will shape indoor air quality, structural durability and maintenance costs for decades to come.
As Africa’s paint industry continues its transition towards safer, smarter and more sustainable products, the manufacturers and policymakers who move fastest to align incentives with innovation stand to define the shape of the sector for the next generation of African construction.
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