African Development Bank Group approves Euro 50 million Trade Finance Risk Participation Partnership with Societe Generale to support local banks and SMEs in Africa
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group on Wednesday 13 July approved a €50 million unfunded risk-sharing facility partnership with Societe Generale to further support trade finance activities across Africa. The facility will contribute to reducing Africa’s trade finance gap by enhancing Societe Generale’s risk bearing capacity by up to fifty percent, enabling it to provide increased confirmation limits to local issuing banks on the continent.
The parties will share the default risk on a portfolio of eligible trade transactions originated by African Issuing Banks and indemnified by Societe Generale. Beneficiaries of this facility will be issuing banks in Africa who will benefit from additional support from international banks to grow their trade finance business, as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and domestic firms who rely on these issuing banks to fulfill their trade finance commitments.
Stefan Nalletamby, Director for Financial Sector Development at the African Development Bank, said the partnership with Societe Generale will help support African small businesses and local corporates involved in international trade.
Guinea: $66 million from the African Development Bank to extend access to electricity
On 14 July 2022 in Abidjan, the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group approved a $66.39 million support package for Guinea. The funding is intended to help it increase access to electricity.
It consists of a $4.17 million grant and a $9.37 million loan from the African Development Fund (the concessional arm of the African Development Bank Group) and a $24.13 million grant and a $28.72 million loan from the Transition Support Facility. The project is co-financed by the Islamic Development Bank, the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa, hosted by the Bank, American cooperation, in particular USAID, through the Africa Energy Program, and the Guinean government.
Kenya: African Development Bank approves a €63 million loan to increase cereals and oil seed production
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved a €63 million loan to Kenya to significantly boost cereals and oil seeds production by over 1.5 million metric tonnes over the next two years. The production increase will help bolster national food security and economic resilience.
The loan is part of the African Development Bank’s $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility, an Africa-wide initiative to avert a looming food crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
The loan will support the country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives (MoALFC). It will enable the government to promptly provide affordable fertilizer and seeds to farmers ahead of the October-December 2022 short rains and into the 2022/2023 long rains crop production season.
Kenya: African Development Bank approves $150 million for Nairobi-Nakuru-Mau Summit Highway Project
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group today approved financing of $150 million to Kenya to support a major highway development project under the government’s First Mover Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme.
The project will see the development of the A8 and A8 South highways. The existing 175km A8 road from Rironi to Mau Summit will be transformed into a four-lane carriageway and the 57.8 km two-lane A8 South, from Rironi to Naivasha will be strengthened and maintained over a period of 30 years.
Both roads are major routes stretching across the most densely populated parts of the country, beginning in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital and commercial nerve center, and traverse several counties in Nakuru and Kiambu, agricultural zones, wildlife reserves and tourism centers. The roads also form part of the strategic “Northern Corridor” which is the busiest trade and transport corridor in East Africa, providing gateway access to Kenya’s landlocked neighbouring countries.
African Development Bank Group approves $73.5 million to boost food production in Tanzania
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group today approved $73.5 million to finance a program that will boost Tanzania’s food production by a million tonnes in three years.
The Tanzania Agricultural Inputs Support Project, spanning September 2022-June 2025, was designed under the Bank Group’s African Emergency Food Production Facility to tackle a potential food crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. It seeks to strengthen the country’s capacity to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat and edible oil production by 2030.
Kenya: African Development Bank approves €89 million loan to bolster economic recovery
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved an €89 million loan to boost the Kenyan government’s economic recovery efforts.
The loan will provide funding for the second phase of Kenya’s Competitiveness and Economic Recovery Support Program (CERSP) that was approved by the Bank in June 2021 and will help the country to free up fiscal space to address other priorities in one of the region’s largest economies. CERSP supports reforms under three components: (i) attaining fiscal sustainability by enhancing anti-money laundering and e-procurement frameworks and oversight over the operations of state-owned enterprises; (ii) strengthening industrial development and competitiveness to deepen the contribution of the manufacturing sector in line with the “Big Four” agenda while fostering climate resilience and green growth; and (iii) enhancing economic and social inclusion by furthering the social protection system and universal health coverage.
African Development Bank extends €121 million food-production loan to Senegal to cushion impacts of war in Ukraine
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group today approved a €121 million loan to Senegal for implementation of an emergency agricultural programme that will benefit 850,000 small farmers, 35% of whom are women..
"Senegal's dependence on the outside world for basic commodities and foodstuffs is a real bottleneck and poses a threat to the country's food sovereignty, which has been sharpened by the war in Ukraine," said Mohamed Chérif, the Bank’s Country Manager for Senegal. "This operation is intended to mitigate exogenous financial, economic, social and climate shocks and to maintain the upward trend in cereal production seen in recent years, especially by focusing efforts on the availability of key inputs including seeds and fertilizers to producers," he added.
African Development Bank, Africa50 and the newly launched African Sovereign Investors Forum signal strong desire to jointly mobilize capital for infrastructure projects
Africa50, the African Development Bank, and Africa Sovereign Investors Forum (ASIF), have signed a letter of intent to collaborate on developing green and climate resilient infrastructure projects across Africa. The three entities will work together to galvanize financing and to drive the development of skills and expertise within the infrastructure sector.
The signing took place on 20 June 2022 in Rabat, Morocco, during an event to launch the Africa Sovereign Investors Forum. Under the high patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI of the Kingdom of Morocco, 10 African sovereign investors agreed to set up the Forum. The newly formed platform will accelerate coordination to mobilize patient capital for the continent’s development.
Cameroon: African Development Bank Board approves €39.6 million loan to improve access to Kribi industrial and port area
On Wednesday, 22 June, the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank approved a €39.62 million loan to Cameroon to improve road access to the industrial and port areas of Kribi, in the south of the country.
Designed for implementation of the second phase of the Kribi Industrial and Port Area Access Roads Development Project, the funds will complement the €114.33-million loan granted in October 2021 for the first phase.
The Cameroonian Government built a deep-water port backing onto an industrial zone called ‘Kribi Industrial and Port Complex’ to address congestion in the port of Douala, which cannot accommodate deep-draft vessels, due to its proximity to the coastal town of Kribi. The complex is equipped with ultra-modern machinery and large storage and work areas. Access roads to the complex have deteriorated over time due to increasing usage by heavy-duty vehicles amid increased industrial activity at the site.
African Development Bank Group urges G7 countries to support Africa’s emergency food production plan
The world must do more to tackle the increasing global food insecurity worsened by Russia’s war in Ukraine, the African Development Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina told a G7 ministerial conference on Friday.
Governments, multilateral Development Banks, international and regional organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil societies, and philanthropists demanded, among others, the release of millions of metric tons of food trapped in Ukraine due to the war.
The German government hosted the conference titled ‘Uniting for Global Food Security,’ to coordinate responses to the global food crisis caused by climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, and heightened by the war in Ukraine.