AFC, IFC partner on infrastructure development, others

Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), has, this month, become the 30th member of the Master Cooperation Agreement (MCA) at the World Bank’s Annual Meetings in Washington DC, United States of America.

Created by the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) in 2009, the MCA seeks to enhance cooperation among member development finance institutions (DFIs). Aside to AFC, other MCA signatories include the UK’s CDC Group, the Netherland’s FMO and Sweden’s Swedfund.

According to a statement by the AFC,” In addition to increased collaboration with other MCA signatories, AFC stands to benefit in several ways through this accession.

This includes an increased deal flow and access to a robust pipeline of project opportunities, increased administrative efficiencies and deal processing, as well as AFC’s overall enhanced relationship with IFC itself.

President and Chief Executive Officer of AFC, Andrew Alli commented: “AFC has long believed in the efficacy of collaboration in accelerating infrastructure development.

It is why we have done so on a number of occasions with sister organizations, including KFW, the German DFI, just last year to finance projects in our core sectors.

The statement said, “In acceding to the MCA, we are demonstrating our commitment to establishing further collaboration with our peers that will ensure we close Africa’s infrastructure gap at an expedited rate.”

Vice President and Treasurer of IFC, Jingdong Hua, commented on the announcement: “The MCA was founded in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to facilitate large-scale infrastructure projects; and it has demonstrated significant capacity to deliver results for Africa.”

AFC is committed to proactively financing and managing the development of key infrastructure projects which will have a positive impact on the lives of Africans throughout the continent.

To date the Corporation has invested approximately US$ 4 billion in projects across 28 countries and in a wide range of sectors including power, telecommunications, transport and logistics, natural resources and heavy industries.

AFC, an investment grade multilateral finance institution, was established in 2007 with an equity capital base of US$1billion, to be the catalyst for private sector infrastructure investment across

Africa. With a current balance sheet size of approximately US$3.5bn, AFC is the second highest investment grade rated multilateral financial institution in Africa with an A3/P2 (Stable outlook) rating from Moody’s Investors Service.

AFC successfully raised US$750 million in 2015 and US$500m in 2017; out of its Board-approved US$3bn Global Medium- Term Note (MTN) Programme. Both issuances were oversubscribed; and attracted investors from Asia, Europe and the USA.