Category Archives: AIF

Deal making to finance the future at the African Investment Forum 2021

Next week at Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire sees the return of the African Investment Forum (AIF) that is supported by the African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

This years’ summit, from December 1 to 3, will be a hybrid mix of physical and virtual sessions and is expected to feature the Presidents of Rwanda, Benin, Mozambique and Togo alongside other continental and international business leaders.

The 2020 annual meetings of the AfDB set out a focus for mobilizing financing towards infrastructure, regional trade and health care and those have carried on into the 2021 AIF whose theme is “Accelerating Transformative Investments in Africa.” It targets five priority investment sectors of agriculture & agro-processing, energy & climate change, health, ICT & Telecoms and industrialization & trade.

At the inaugural AIF in 2018 in South Africa, deals in demand were energy investments for Southern Africa, while East, Central, North and West Africa all had infrastructure top their deal discussions. Eventually, the forum secured $38 billion of investments for 49 projects across the continent.

At the next AIF in 2019, 2,200 participants from 101 countries discussed 57 deals worth $67 billion and eventually, investments were secured for 52 deals worth $40 billion. The 2019 forum also saw 16 SME’s and startups get to pitch in different boardrooms, now a staple of the AIF, alongside industry giants raising millions of dollars for larger projects.

There was no AIF last year, because of Covid-19, and the spotlight that should have been on deals to accelerate African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), has now taken on an added element of helping country economies rebound from Covid-19. The African Development Bank has provided support to different countries through a COVID-19 Rapid Response Facility. Also at the 2021 bank annual meetings, AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina announced that the G7 heads of state had heeded a call that $100 billion of the special drawing rights (SDRs) being issued by the IMF, be provided to support African countries as they tackle debt challenges while responding to Covid-19.

This year priority deals are being discussed that revolve around recovering from Covid-19 and include hospital projects in Angola, Cameroon and Nigeria. Another is to secure $45 million for a vaccine production facility in Eastern Africa that will manufacture three vaccines for the WHO, including one for Covid-19. There are also cotton industry projects for Burkina Faso and Mozambique as Covid-19 showed the need for self-sufficiency and a need to promote local manufacturing capabilities.

Highlights of the 2018 AIF: Afreximbank bank launched a project preparation facility, Mara launched an Android phone, there was an African creative industry showcase and social boardroom sessions for deals in Ghana and Zambia.

Highlights of the 2019 AIF: There were 6 concurrent boardroom sessions, a $600 million investment for the Ghana Cocoa Board, a financing deal for a road-rail bridge over the Congo River to link Kinshasa and Brazzaville, a forum on unclogging digital investments, and the launch of the (4th) Visa Openness Index report. It also featured sessions on opening the bank vault for women entrepreneurs, agro-processing industrial zones, climate change, an infrastructure financing trends report was launched, and a Lusophone compact for Portuguese-speaking African countries that reviewed six investment deals worth $702 million.

2021 AIF Format: Because of Covid-19 restrictions, the AIF will have 250 physical participants in Abidjan while over 2,000 others will connect virtually to participate in the boardrooms, virtual marketplaces, and virtual B2B meetings with investors and sponsors. In addition to the plenary sessions, there will be other parallel invite-only sessions that will feature heads of state, policymakers and industry leaders, some of which will be aligned for American and Asian timezones.

Anyone interested can register here for this year’s event, while companies and individuals are encouraged to join the AIF platform. There they will access financial and investment opportunities as they network with communities of other professionals. 

EDIT: November 29. The Africa Investment Forum event was postponed at the last minute after a new Covid-19 variant made it difficult for delegations to travel to Abidjan and the organizers made a decision to put prioritize the health of participants. AIF teams will continue to have discussions with partners towards investment decisions until they can reconvene at a later date.

 EDIT: March 2022:

The three day-virtual boardrooms of the Africa Investment Forum resulted in $32.8 billion of commitments to invest in bankable projects. These include:

  • $15.6 billion for the Lagos – Abidjan (via Accra, Lomé and Cotonou) corridor project led by ECOWAS, with the AfDB proving $40 million for feasibility studies towards the 1,081 kilometer highway.
  • $50 million – Makbel Dairy Farm in Angola that will turn the country into a net exporter of milk products.
  • $67 million – Mobihealth Telemedicine initiative.
  • $232 million – for a liquefied natural gas project in Guinea.
  • $3.3 billion East Africa railway corridor Tanzania-Burundi-DRC, with a separate line between Rwanda to Tanzania.
  • An Accra medical project
  • $545 million mine in DRC
  • $140 million film academy in Nigeria.

10 Points from AfDB 2019 in Malabo

The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group held their 2019 series of annual meetings from 11 to 14 June in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea with the theme of “Regional Integration”

Highlights of the meetings:

1. Fast growth is not Enough: A key theme of the week was that the stellar growth levels in Africa (over 4%) were still not enough to create enough jobs and produce sufficient food on the continent.

2. High 5’s:  Regional Integration is one of the development priority themes (‘ High 5s’) that the Bank had adopted at its 2016 meetings in Lusaka, Zambia alongside (to) “Light up and power Africa”, “Feed Africa”, “Industrialise Africa”, and “Improve the quality of life of the people of Africa.”

3. It is Capital Raising time for the Bank and is organs. There are advanced talks towards a 7th general capital increase, the first since 2010, for the African Development Bank, which will be concluded in September.

A few months ago, Canada provided temporary callable capital of up to $1.1 billion to stabilize the AAA rating of the Bank.

There are also ongoing negotiations for a 15th replenishment of the African Development Fund.

4. Visa Index: The Bank’s Africa Visa Openness Index ranks how accessible African countries are to visitors from within the continent in terms of requiring travel visas and tracks developments by different countries to improve the ease of travel for fellow African citizens.

5. Low intra-Africa trade:  Ahead of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which comes into force in July 2019, the potential economic benefits of full implementation were highlighted, with the greatest beneficiaries of the increased trade likely to be countries in the Central Africa region.

Africa has 54 countries; Alone they are not very competitive, but together, under the Continental Free Trade Agreement, they are a market of $3.4 trillion

 

Also see the regional economic outlook reports by the Bank.

6. Debt levels in Africa: There was some discussion about the levels and types of debt across Africa and their potential burden versus the growth and infrastructure needs of individual countries. Also the Bank affirmed its support to help countries negotiate better financing terms, get better deals for extractive resources, minimize currency risks, and to enable them to mobilize their own resources domestically.

7. Asia-models for Africa: At the AfDBAM2019, Korea and India showcased their partnerships with the Bank including on agricultural transformation, enhancing food security and scaling financing across Africa.

8. Different forms of development finance by the Bank: 

  • Toward Financial Inclusion

  • Integration of Africa

  • The Environment

  • Food Security

  • Disaster Relief

  • Clean Energy

  • They also have plans for an affirmative action finance facility for women in Africa (AFAWA).

9. Transformational Infrastructure Projects funded by the bank include ports, highways, bridges and border-crossing stations across different countries.

10. Malabo Image: Host nation, Equatorial Guinea, used the forum to shed an image about the country that is full of old stereotypes to one of economic diversification, transformation and infrastructure. President Obiang attended the opening of the AfDBAM2019 which were chaired by the country’s Minister of Finance, Cesar Abogo, who is just 39 years old.

(a) Parallel events during AfDBAM2019: 

  • Africa Investment Forum last year which at its inaugural AIF forum in 2018 in Johannesburg secured  $38 billion of investments for 40 projects across Africa.

  • African Banker Awards

(b) Next meeting: Following these first-ever meetings to take place in Central Africa, the next annual meetings of the bank will be in a year’s time in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire – the bank’s headquarter city, where they the election of the Bank President will be the main agenda item.