Special Briefing
Helaina R. Matza, Acting Special Coordinator
Office of the U.S. Special Coordinator for the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment
Acting Special Coordinator for the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI), Helaina Matza, reviews her August 21-28 travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Tanzania. Acting Coordinator Matza shares opportunities to expand the Lobito Corridor focus in the DRC and integrate Tanzania with the Lobito Corridor investments, thereby making concrete progress toward the vision of a Trans-Africa Corridor from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans. Acting Coordinator Matza discusses ongoing U.S.-led investments in the development of the Lobito Corridor, including progress on the greenfield Zambia-Lobito rail line, and highlight new investments that expand the economic corridor to the Indian Ocean.
MODERATOR: Good afternoon to everyone from the U.S. Department of State’s Africa Regional Media Hub. I welcome our participants logging in from across the continent and thank all of you for joining us. Today, we are very pleased to be joined by Acting Special Coordinator for the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI), Helaina Matza. Special Coordinator Matza will review her August 21-28 travel to the DRC and Tanzania, including opportunities to expand the Lobito Corridor focus on the DRC and integrate Tanzania with the Lobito Corridor investments, thereby making concrete progress toward the vision of a Trans-Africa Corridor from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans. Special Coordinator Matza will review ongoing U.S.-led investments in the development of the Lobito Corridor, including progress on the greenfield Zambia-Lobito rail line, and highlight new investments that expand the economic corridor to the Indian Ocean.
We will begin today’s briefing with opening remarks from Special Coordinator Matza, then we will turn to your questions. We will try to get to as many of them as we can during the briefing.
With that, I will turn it over to Special Coordinator Matza for opening remarks.
MS MATZA: Thank you so much, and good afternoon, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be with you today, hopefully in person at some point in the near future. I’ll be brief because I certainly want to make this as much of a conversation and get to all of your questions. But let me just start with it’s a privilege to be here in Tanzania representing the U.S. Government’s effort to support regional integration, sustainable economic development, and all through continuing to invest in quality infrastructure investments.
Our mission on this trip is to continue expanding the Trans-Africa Corridor. That includes relaunching our partnership with the DRC and engaging with the Tanzanian Government and private sector on next steps towards extending the economic corridor to the Indian Ocean. As President Biden has said from day one of the launch of this flagship effort, this corridor has never just been about building infrastructure; it’s about building the future of the region.
That’s really what the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment is all about, or PGI as we like to call it. It’s about offering high-quality, sustainable infrastructure projects that deliver lasting economic growth. By leveraging public and private financing – and committing to transparency, good governance, and anticorruption – these projects are designed to create jobs, facilitate trade both within the region and globally, and spur new investments in agriculture, digital connectivity, food security, and clean energy – all serving the economic development of the people of these countries and new job growth. For DRC and Tanzania, and the broader region, we hope this means more opportunity and sustained economic growth across all these sectors. We’re here alongside our African partners to really deliver these infrastructure needs based on what they identify are the most important needs for their communities and to improves live for what we hope will be many generations to come.
To do so here in Tanzania, we are working with the government and throughout the region and the private sector to really get a deeper understanding of what some of those local needs are and how to best extend the Trans-Africa Corridor, both physically by the backbone rail that we have helped invest in, and I’ll go into more detail throughout the conversation, but by thinking about important layered projects that help leverage what happens when you actually bring down the amount of time it takes to transit in a region.
When you bring trade routes down from 45 days to 36 hours, it opens up a whole new world for markets, and that’s what we’re testing here today: How can we help new agribusiness develop? What are the right places to think about cold storage, warehousing, logistics? What local food producers can we help support along the way? This is a huge part of how we’re supporting the clean energy supply chain piece of this work, not only thinking about how we work on critical mineral projects, but how we think about processing in the region and how we think about getting clean energy solutions to those projects.
In fact, while I was here, we had an opportunity with the minister of mines and Lifezone Metals CEO Chris Showalter to be able to announce a project – excuse me, to introduce and announced project insurance for the Development Finance Corporation’s commitment to providing Lifezone this new product that is part of our PGI effort. Part of why we think this project is so special and why it’s such an important investment in Tanzania’s economic diversification and our commitment to help deliver these private sector investments is that it’s more than helping support bringing online an important nickel project, although, unto itself, that would be an excellent contribution; but it’s working on the connection between Kabanga and Kahama, and working how to develop a special economic zone that not only creates opportunities for processing here in country – the nickel products coming out – but hopefully more feedstock from other parts of the country and the region, while investing at the same time in training of local Tanzanians to participate in every part of the value chain of that industry.
These are the types of projects that we are looking to identify and continue to work on. This is how we are looking at the corridor, not just as the United States but with the G7 as a whole. So I maybe will just pause there briefly, and I’m happy to go into a little bit more detail, of course, about some of the work that we’ve done in the DRC to re-engage on those important conversations along the same topics. But let’s turn back to you all, and I’m happy to take any questions you have.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Special Coordinator Matza. We will now begin the question-and-answer portion of today’s briefing. If, at anytime you would like to ask a question live. Please indicate that by clicking on the raise hand button, and then typing your name, your media outlet and location, and question into the question and answers tab. Please make sure to use the Q&A tab, and not the chat box. Also, be aware from our side we only see your zoom logon. If we cannot tell who you are, we will not be able to call on you. And we ask that you limit yourself to one question only, related to the topic of today’s briefing, which is the Lobito Corridor Expansion and the U.S. Infrastructure on the African continent.
With that, we’re going to our first question, and our first question comes from Mr. Julian Pecquet from The Africa Report, and he asks: “What is the U.S. rationale behind wanting to connect the Lobito Corridor to the Indian Ocean?” Special Coordinator, are you there?
MS MATZA: So from – thank you, thank you. So from day one, when President Biden committed the U.S. through PGI to support the Lobito Corridor development, which really was launched by the presidents of Angola, DRC, and Zambia, we knew that we wanted to continue that work to the Indian Ocean. This was the intent of our investments and response to what we have known to be the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the priorities of SADC, and really the vision for regional transport connectivity that’s been born here on the continent.
The Trans-Africa Corridor really capitalizes on the continent’s shared drive for greater integration and shared prosperity, and we want to make sure that as the continent’s coming together around the opportunity for the first transcontinental railway that we’re doing what we can to help support that leg by leg. And we’ve done that in a way that we hope has been supportive of the expectations of our partners here on the ground.
We think that investments in the rail will deliver exponential benefits to communities throughout the corridor, as I mentioned before, but we’ve got to take this one piece at a time. And what we really thought the best place to begin was where we had an opportunity to support a refurbishment of an existing rail line, and that included DFC’s initial $250 million commitment to finance a Western consortium in refurbishing and operating the Benguela rail line across Angola and to upgrade key portions of that rail line in DRC.
However, we knew that only that was partially there, and we weren’t taking advantage of the needs of our other partners, including how to leverage, as President Hichilema says, Zambia’s land-linked opportunities and connecting the rest of the region, similar to the gateway that Tanzania plays for its six neighbors to the Dar port. And so we turned our focus to a greenfield rail project – the first project for the United States of its kind in over a generation: 800 kilometers of greenfield rail built in partnership with the three Lobito countries as they stand now as we continue our way through completing, we hope, the trans-African connectivity to the Indian Ocean.
This has been a really interesting development for us as we’ve been developing a new type of way to finance along with our partners from the European Union, the Italian Government, from the African Development Bank, and with our project developer, the Africa Finance Corporation. But now we’re ready for phase three, and that includes deepening our engagement in DRC, expanding those economic benefits to Tanzania, and then thinking about, beyond the rail, what sectors, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we can offer the best opportunities for our support as they reflect the development growth needs and desires of the countries we’re working in.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Special Coordinator Matza. The second question comes from Mr. Helmo Preuss from Business Report, and he asks : “What are the timelines for the Zambia-Lobito leg and who will provide the money?”
MS MATZA: Thank you. And I should say for the portion of the rail – I’m going to answer the question I want, and then this as well. For the portion of the rail that we have been able to finance already the refurbishment of, connecting DRC to the Port of Lobito, we actually have seen several shipments, including the first ones of copper to Baltimore, just in the last couple of days while we’ve been on the ground. So it’s very exciting. But of course, that’s a rail refurbishment program that’s different, right, than the commitment we’re making on the Zambia Lobito leg.
So this development of 800 kilometers of greenfield rail is the most ambitious commercially led infrastructure on the continent that the U.S. has supported. And I try to really double down on commercially led, because I think that’s a really important element of the way that we’re trying to design this work.
So part of phase two – and it’s one of the most ambitious infrastructure investments we’ve made in a very long time. And the way that we set this up was through a seven-sided MOU that we signed in October 2023 that brought in the United States, the EU, and AFC as supporting the project development, where we mobilized $10 million to kick off the feasibility study. We put ourselves on a very ambitious timeline. Feasibility is well underway. So from announcement to feasibility beginning and now almost completed, we’ll have a much better sense of everything that we would need to do to help start closing any viability gaps as we’re identifying them.
So in the meantime, fundraising is underway. The Africa Development Bank has committed $500 million, while Italy, while they were the host of the G7 hosting our now-annual PGI side event, has pledged $320 million towards the project. The DFC has committed an additional $250 million to support AFC’s broader infrastructure development efforts, and we are starting to bring together other lenders and supporters and ways to potentially pre-book capacity on this rail to make this deal as commercial as it can be with the support it requires to get over the finish line.
So this is where we are right now. We think over the next several months after we have those feasibility results we’ll be able to do more fundraising around equity and project debt once we are able to bring more commercial project financing in.
MODERATOR: Thank you. And the next question states: “Can you elaborate on the role of public-private partnerships in ensuring that these infrastructure projects lead to sustainable economic growth and job creation?”
MS MATZA: Yes, of course. I think that it’s really important to think about the role that PPPs play, especially in infrastructure projects. They’re a critical element of finding ways to build the groups, the consortiums you need around really large-scale infrastructure projects that are hard to finance and find the feasibility on its own. So these partnerships are really designed to leverage the strengths of both the public and private sector while maximizing the impact of that investment, while ensuring that we’re doing everything we can to support project viability and achieve the longer-term outcomes as we go through the humps that we know sometimes make these projects unfortunately die on the vine.
And so the PPP model in the case of what we’re doing in the Zambia rail line that I explained earlier is really an essential piece to ensure that we’re keeping all the momentum we need behind this project. And part of the reason why along with the project developer and their relationship and agreements that they’re working through with Zambia and Angola, that the other donors and government bodies have a role to play all along the way without getting in the way of the commercial elements of that agreement. So trying to find ways that we do these projects, leveraging all the things we’ve learned from donor development, and trying to create, right, a more combined commercial model creates a space for that concessional assistance, additional financing tools, de-risking tools, while the commercial deal continues to move forward.
While that happens, we are able as governments on all sides – those that are helping to lend and design the projects, and those that the projects are happening; in this case, Angola and Zambia – are able to work with the developer to ensure that these projects are ultimately reflecting the additional desires that we want to see, everything I articulated in my opening remarks, including hiring local workforces, looking for routes that have the minimal amount of displacement, and holding a whole other set of important indicators that we care about around decarbonization and just transition. This is how we’re able to bring things that we know many commercial developers would consider, but now we’re able to actually combine that with some of the public desire and needs around this project. And so I think that’s how that model comes together, gets hard projects over the finish line, while also being able to add these other important fundamental pieces that are really directly aligned with the benefits for the local populations.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Special Coordinator Matza. The next question comes from Mr. Dieudonne Mubenga from B-One TV, from the DRC. And his question – he states that the Lobito Corridor initially includes three countries, but since the signing of the memorandum of understanding in October 2023, the United States has allocated $5 million to women farmers in the provinces crossed by the Lobito Corridor, and that an additional funding of $3.5 million has been assigned to the public procurement sector. At the PGI forum in Zambia, the U.S. also took action actively in favor of promoting this project and the DRC where you went recently, and the public has not retained any funding to date. And he asks: “What’s your concern about the state of the infrastructure?”
MS MATZA: So in the work that we’ve been doing across the corridor, of course every partnership with each country and their needs and how they’re essentially identifying them takes time. That’s part of the reason why we made the effort to spend time with the cabinet officials of the DRC Government, representatives from the presidency, to say now that we have created our initial structure and the momentum around the work we’re doing, and we’ve been able to set up these initial investments in our neighbor countries, what are the additional activities we need to do here in DRC to both identify those priority projects which we are expecting to receive quite soon while thinking through the hurdles we need to work together?
And we’ve seen a lot of progress really since the initial development of the corridor, including partnership between AFC and Gécamines, the Congolese state-owned mining company, to continue to develop critical minerals and support clean energy supply chains. As a G7, we’ve been helping facilitate a handful of different types of investments that we hope will continue to bolster up DRC’s contribution to the global clean energy transition while supporting development in the country. And so this all takes time, and we’re confident that we’ll be able to move forward some of these really important projects.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much for that answer. And the next question comes from Hannah Northey with E&E News, and she asks: “I would like to ask Special Coordinator Matza how and if a change in administration in November could affect the State Department’s investment plans in Africa and the Lobito Corridor.”
MS MATZA: I think this is a really important question, and I have two pieces to unpack there. One is part of the model of working so closely with commercial developers and supporting their financing structures and package as a way to bring our contributions into these projects means they’re well underway. So every dollar that you have heard that’s announced already is in motion, and I think that’s really important. And so what we’re focused on right now is how do we identify those last pieces that we need to get moving to be able to have the backbone, the architecture of the structure we need for that connectivity. So I also hope that offers assurances to our partners in those host governments that – where we’re well underway.
The second piece on how the work may look moving forward for projects not announced, not designed. I think that in many ways there’s a good deal of bipartisan support, especially around how we approach elements of the energy transition and the way that we support clean energy and critical mineral supply chains. And our initial investments in support of the region is already demonstrating that that can pay off in dividends, not just for the United States but for our partners as well. I can see that model continuing to persevere, but it’s not our job to speculate on election outcomes but rather reflect on how we are doing everything we can to institutionalize the work we began.
MODERATOR: Great. Thank you, Special Coordinator Matza. So the next question comes from – excuse me here – from Luke Anami from Nation Media Group in Nairobi, and he asks: “What is the funding model for the Lobito Corridor project?”
MS MATZA: So that’s a really big question, and the answer is there’s not one funding model for the Lobito Corridor project. And that’s because the corridor is comprised of many different projects layered on top of each other – some identified and negotiated with our partners in the G7 with our host countries, others directly by us, and then several in partnership. And that’s kind of the point. What we’re doing with our investment in the backbone rail and these first initial projects is trying to catalyze what we hope will be continued in increasingly more private investment across all these sectors.
So when we hosted the Lobito investor forum in Lusaka that was referenced in one of the other questions, we were able to test that theory about a year into this type of work. And we were really pleasantly surprised, not only by the robust attendance – over 500 people to the point that we were truly at max capacity – but what was happening between the private sector entities, not just with our representatives from DFC and EXIM and the public financing tools but the conversations they were having with each other. Logistics firms talking to ag firms, energy firms talking to mining firms – we think this is all happening naturally, but what we’re learning is, as we continue to create the space, a lot of this work will continue on on top of these initial investments.
And so I shared a little bit about the structure for the largest piece of infrastructure that we are investing in. Otherwise, every project will look a bit different. Some will require USAID grant support. Some will require just political risk insurance. And it’s our job as a partnership to identify the right tools for the right project.
MODERATOR: Thank you. The next question comes from Kate Bartlett from Voice of America, and she says – and she asks: “The U.S. has been critical of China’s grand infrastructure projects for what it says is unsustainable levels of debt African countries end up taking on. How will the U.S. avoid this? Secondly, will any of the critical minerals that this corridor is all about be processed and refined in African countries, or exported raw? Thank you.”
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MS MATZA: So I think that points right to the model that we’re discussing here. We’re working directly with not only the host governments but private partners in how to finance these projects. And this is why that’s important. What we’re doing is not trying to expand upon the debt of the countries we’re working in. We’re not trying to work against that balance sheet. What we’re doing instead is bringing a developer or working with a developer in country that’s interested in being there but needs help and support to get the project done – both in feeling confident that they have the support they need by both governments but also in some financing support.
This is a really different model that helps our government partners who are restructuring debt right now. Almost every country that we’re talking about in the Lobito group at least, and in some of our other flagships initiatives also, invests in infrastructure that they couldn’t because they have to go through that debt restructuring piece of their agenda. So we think this is a unique way. Now, there will be grants and MDBs participating in this work, but this is what we think is different about this model.
The other piece is this model really is not designed to be extractive. It’s designed for economic growth, which I know sometimes sounds like a buzz word, but that’s why we’re focused on trade moving in both directions. We want – as materials continue to move into regional global markets – that we think about how we can help the ag distribution within the continent, for example, an example I already shared. And a good chunk of the projects, including the one I included in my opening remarks, is focused on exactly what you said about critical minerals. It’s not about, for us, extracting raw ore. In fact, we’re thinking about how we help finance the ecosystem for beneficiation in country, in other partner countries to be part of the global battery ecosystem as it continues to develop.
This, we hope, is a response to our partner countries’ desire to continue to move further up the value chain, but it’s aligned with our own goals also. We need to see more resiliency in these supply chains in every step of the way. And being able to do some of this work closer to where these resources are, are a piece of that puzzle, in addition to all the investments that we’re focused on and making at home. These are going to be big markets. There’s a lot of electrification to happen. There’s a lot of EV deployments. There’s space to participate in it for, we think, all our partners. And that’s part of what we like about the Lifezone project in Tanzania; it’s what we like about some of the work that we’re doing in Zambia, and some work we are – we’re working on in the DRC that we’re not quite ready to talk about yet.
MODERATOR: Thank you. We have time for one last question. And the last question goes to Marc Howard from African Energy Newsletter, and he asks that: “For the third phase of the Lobito Trans-African Corridor, would we see a rail link to a Tanzanian port on the Indian Ocean? Would such a line interconnect with the existing Tazara line or would it – or would it more likely be a greenfield development?”
MS MATZA: Excellent question. This is exactly what we’re here to investigate right now. So through our consultations with the various Tanzanian line ministries and with the president’s office of planning, this is what we’re gaming out. Not only what is the potential rail connection, but what are some of these other projects that exemplify the one that we were able to support while we were here right now that has nothing to do with rail but has to do with everything else we’ve been discussing. And so we remain open. We think it’s really important to leverage existing infrastructure. And if we are given the opportunity to find a way to create some compatibility and an open access connectivity between the work that we’re doing in Tazara and/or other existing rail lines, we’re certainly going to do everything we can to pursue that.
MODERATOR: Great. Thank you so much, Special Coordinator Matza. Do you have any final words?
MS MATZA: Maybe just a very brief one. You probably can hear our enthusiasm. I really enjoy when I’m in the region taking the time to do this particular hub call. It’s a good indicator to me that we are making progress, what we still need to make progress on, and I hope that you’re seeing that every time we get together, we have not just more announcements around big events, but true material progress across all the sectors we’ve been talking about. So I’m just really appreciative of you taking the time and look forward to continuing the conversation, as always.
MODERATOR: Thank you. Well, that concludes today’s briefing. I want to thank the Acting Special Coordinator for the Partnership of Global Infrastructure and Investment, Helaina Matza, for joining us, and thank you to all the journalists for participating. A recording and transcript of today’s briefing will be distributed to participating journalists as soon as we can produce them. If you have any questions about today’s briefing, you may contact the African Regional Media Hub at AFMediaHub@state.gov. That is AFMediaHub@state.gov. I would also like to invite everyone to follow us on X at our handle @AfricaMediaHub. Thank you.
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