The Africa Investment Forum (AIF) and its partners have a critical role to play in bringing together the private sector and leaders to get deals done in Africa, the AIF Senior Director Chinelo Anohu said during a session at the 2022 Milken Institute Global Conference.
The Milken conference brings together leaders of government, the private sector, international organisations, and academia to tap market-based principles and financial innovations to tackle economic and social issues.
During the conference, Anohu participated in a panel titled Financing the Sustainable Development Goals: A Reality Check on the Promise of "Billions to Trillions.” The discussion focused on the opportunities and bottlenecks to closer collaboration between multilateral institutions, governments, and the private sector to drive trillions of dollars in foreign direct investment into Asian, Latin American, and African emerging markets.
Created in 2018 by the African Development Bank and seven partners (Afreximbank, Africa50, Africa Finance Corporation, Development Bank of Southern Africa, European Investment Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and Trade and Development Bank), the Africa Investment Forum is Africa’s premier investment marketplace with three key objectives: advancing deals to bankability, raising capital, and accelerating deals to closure. Since 2020, its mission, sharpened by the Coronavirus pandemic, has focused on investments with potential to drive Africa’s economic recovery. To date, the AIF has closed ten deals valued at $3.1 billion, with a further $118 billion worth of investments in its pipeline.
Anohu also hosted an investor roundtable event expected to drum up interest in the AIF’s 2022 Market Days event scheduled for November in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
The side event at Milken showcased billions of dollars in potential investments in energy, infrastructure, urban development, health, ICT and Telecoms, the creative sector, and green investments, all of which are strategic priorities of the AIF and its parent, the African Development Bank.
Anohu said: “At the AIF we provide the requisite support for projects and project sponsors across the project lifecycle from a developmental angle, and a profit-making one. The Africa Investment Forum leverages the resources of the African Development Bank and other partners to cut project preparation times in half, while also doubling the output of bankable projects in Africa.”
The panel’s other participants were John Gandolfo, IFC Treasurer; Special Envoy of the U.N. Secretary-General on Innovative Finance and Sustainable Investments Hiro Mizuno; and Bart Turtelboom, Board Chair at Delphos, a global leader in project finance and transaction advisory.
Anohu cited the COCOBOD Productivity Enhancement Programme deal as an exemplary Africa Investment Forum project.
In November 2019, Ghana’s Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) signed an agreement with the African Development Bank, Credit Suisse AG, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited for a $600 million syndicated receivable backed term loan.
COCOBOD’s productivity enhancement programmes (PEPs) are expected to create about 6,168 full-time jobs over a seven-year period, 45% of which will be for women. The project will also benefit about 90,000 youth who will be contracted and trained to establish community-based businesses that offer cocoa pollination services to farmers.
While in Los Angeles, the AIF delegation also attended a graduation ceremony for the IFC – International Finance Corporation Milken Institute Capital Markets Fellows Programme.
The Milken Fellows are a global network of leaders in financial policy, drawn from finance ministries, central banks, stock exchanges, and financial regulatory bodies across 45 countries who are building deep, liquid, and vibrant capital markets in their emerging and developing economies.