Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund commits $200m in loans to fragile States

The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund(EAIF), suppliers of debt finance to private sector infrastructureprojects in sub-Saharan Africa, said on Tuesday that it had ended 2017 on a high note with $200-million in loan commitments to fragile states.EAIF, a company of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) which is funded by donors from seven countries abroad and the World Bank Group, provides a variety of debt products to infrastructureprojects promoted mainly by private sector businesses in sub-Saharan Africa.The Fund said that the new transactions represented $200-million in loan commitments, bringing its committed loan portfolio to $750-million.

EAIF said that it had signed ten transactions and all its key performance indicators were achieved in 2017, rapidly approaching having 45 active projects in its portfolio.The company’s core strategy is focused mainly on fragile states where traditional lenders to the private sector do not operate and where capital from the development finance sector was scarce.

Nazmeera Moola, head of EAIF at its management firm Investec Asset Management, said: “These achievements show that EAIF helped accelerate economic development in countries and sectors which are new to us, while taking on new ventures in countries in which we have long-standing projects.During 2017, EAIF added Madagascar and Mali to the list of countries it has projects in.Overall, EAIF provided finance to independent power producers that will bring 90 MW of new solarpower to Africa and financed 374 MW of power across solar, hydro and fossil fuel in 2017.EAIF also led the debt financing for the $60.8-million water treatment facility for Kigali, Rwanda, to be owned, built and managed by KigaliWater Limited.

David White, EAIF chairperson, stated: “Most infrastructure has a life of at least 20 years. Children being born now will benefit for many years from projects EAIF has supported in 2017,” White said.Other EAIF projects in 2017 included refinancing the Bugoye hydro electricity plant in Uganda, expansion of the Tobene ll power station in Senegal, and a renewable energyproject in Mozambique.