AfDB, partners commit $3.8bn to speedily close Africa’s investment gap

• 15 deals in AIF’s current portfolio
• All deals valued at $3.79 billion earmarked to address the impact of COVID-19

By Charles Abuede

The Africa Investment Forum (AIF) in a collaboration supportive of the African Development Bank (AfDB) alongside its founding and institutional partners, has revealed it is working to accelerate the closure of the investment gaps across the continent to bring about an increased and decisive investment that will be the channel for Africa’s economic recovery post-COVID-19.

The partners of the Africa Investment Forum made this revelation while expressing confidence in the continent’s potentials to spring back from the ongoing health and economic crises, during a two day virtual meeting for the Africa Investment Forum founding, institutional and knowledge partners.

Akinwumi Adesina, president, African Development Bank, in his keynote address said “Africa will come out of this pandemic, tough as it is, and will build better and stronger economies. As partners of the Africa Investment Forum, the premier investment platform for Africa, our gaze must be clear; help Africa reboot its economy,”

The Africa Investment Forum, during the virtual meeting, revealed 15 projects it identified for priority funding consideration across five sectors under its Unified COVID-19 Response.

The 15 deals are, however, collectively from the investment forum’s current portfolio amounting to $3.79 billion and cuts across sectors which include agriculture and agro-processing, energy, health, ICT and telecoms and industrial and trade. The AIF further reported that the projects will help increase the continent’s self-sufficiency and resilience against future shocks. Four projects sponsors were invited to pitch their deals to over 100 investors present at the meeting. The deals include:

• Dairy processing project in Angola,
• Vaccine manufacturing plant in Kenya,
• Cotton manufacturing project in Mozambique; and
• Proprietary telemedicine platform in Nigeria.

Following the meeting, which took place as the Africa Investment Forum maintains its efforts to build on the successes of its first two years in bringing to market deals with transformative potential for Africa’s development, the forum’s deal tracker mechanism was straightway deployed to capture investment interest and also ensure effective investor-project matchmaking.

Chinelo Anohu, head and senior director of the Africa Investment Forum, declared that “the Africa Investment Forum is not a talk shop. What we are trying to do is to focus our partners’ efforts on the platform’s bankable deals from the 2018 and 2019 portfolio, as well as some new ones in 2020. We are concentrating not just on the health sector, but also on other sectors that will help jumpstart recovery across the continent,” she added while stressing that deals “more responsive” to the pandemic are being curated, to provide much-needed support to the private sector.

The investment forum, while revealing its Unified COVID-19 Response and an update on its activities disclosed that the Africa Investment Forum beyond Boardroom Sessions continues to support project sponsors through it’s Deal Tracker mechanism, which monitors the conversion of investment interests to financing commitments, and facilitates the progress of deals towards financial close.

The AfDB partners also revealed that so far, the forum has facilitated the closure of eight deals valued at $2.18 billion from 2018 portfolio.

In the virtual meeting, which mirrored typical sessions of its annual Market-Days, the Africa Investment Forum assembled over 190 participants including current and prospective partners, investors and project sponsors.