The African Financing Partnership (AFP) says it is adopting the collaborative co-financing platform to facilitate cost-effective preparations of African projects for financing by the Development Finance Institutions (DFIs).
The investors promoting the AFP, which pledged a USD 15-billion investment fund for supporting the growth of the private sector in Africa on Monday May 11 in Dakar, include the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group and The Agence Francaise de Development Group.
Other investors are the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the European Investment Bank Islamic Development Bank Group, KfW Bankengruppe and the World Bank Group.
The Coordinator of the AFP, Preeti Sinha, told a business luncheon of the African Financing Partnership Co-financiers in Dakar on Tuesday that the target of the AFP was to finance large scale projects in infrastructure, extractive, industrial and agro-industries in Africa.
In addition to facilitating collaboration among promoting partners in the core business areas, Sinha said that the AFP would later extend its co-financing initiative to other sectors of the African economies.
According to Sinha, the collaboration initiatives allow each DFI to make its own independent decision on participation. The DFI has the opportunity of tapping into the experiences of companies with strong business experience in Africa.
AFP creates a harmonious collaboration facility among the promoting partners working as a team for seamless and efficient co-financing with the one taking the lead and with labour sharing among the others, Sinha explained.
In the AFP initiative, everybody benefits from closer collaboration since it creates room for efficiency, diversification, effectiveness and capacity building among the financing partners.
Some of the several transactions that the DFIs are carrying out closely together, according to Sinha, include the new Dakar Airport project by the AIDB, LakeTurkana Wind Farm project in Kenya, by LWTP, Main One Cable project, Helios Towers project in Nigeria and the Nairobi toll road project by the IFC.
The others are Egyptian Refinery Company project by Proparco, African Outgrower Development Funds and the Ruzizi III project by the European Investment Bank.
Presenting the eight projects to the audience, the presenters harped on the profitable nature of the projects and called for more investors to join in supporting and funding these projects, since there is still room for more investors to team up with the AFP in promoting economic growth of Africa.
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Emmanuel Ngwainmbi
