Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) (www.AfricaFC.org), the continent’s leading infrastructure solutions provider, has been awarded “DFI of the Year-Europe & Africa” at the 2022 IJGlobal Awards. IJGlobal, a prominent industry publication for the energy and infrastructure market, presented the prestigious award to AFC at a ceremony last night in London, UK.
Samaila Zubairu, President & CEO of Africa Finance Corporation, said: “We are incredibly proud and humbled to receive this distinguished award. We extend our gratitude to IJGlobal Awards and its judges for acknowledging our accomplishments. Our success is the result of the unwavering commitment and tireless efforts of every individual at AFC, as well as the invaluable support of our partners and stakeholders. Our resolve to provide efficient sustainable solutions that bridge Africa’s infrastructure deficit and unleash its economic potential remains unflinching. Our ultimate goal is to establish Instrumental Africa as the powerhouse catalyst for worldwide economic growth, particularly as humanity grapples with the pressing challenge of resource scarcity and depletion. This time, we are committed to ensuring that Africa captures and retains value from its immense critical resources.”
AFC has a proven track record of developing key transformational projects on the continent, providing pragmatic solutions for Africa’s infrastructure deficit and challenging operating environment for over 16 years. One of the Corporation’s early investments at inception was the Cabeolica wind farm, a 26MW project supplying at the time 25% of the country’s electricity needs. Since then, AFC has made investments in Singrobo, a 44 MW hydro-electric power project, a 60MW wind farm project in Djibouti, and the 1,300MW Kainji Hydro Dam in Nigeria and, most recently, the joint acquisition of Lekela Power, Africa’s largest renewables-focused independent power producer, with plans to more than double capacity of the operating assets within four years.
One of the judges of the awards said: “AFC deserves to be recognised for the leading role it plays in the development of project finance and infrastructure in several African countries. We were impressed that AFC was seen to be truly value-additive through its participation, helping other lenders get comfortable with risks or projects they would otherwise be uncomfortable with.”
As part of its drive to address Africa’s vulnerability to climate risk, AFC launched an asset management arm, AFC Capital Partners, with its debut offering of the Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund (ICRF) targeting US$500 million in its first twelve months (US$2 billion over the next three years). The ICRF will act both as a direct investor and a co-investment fund to enhance the quality of African ports, roads, bridges, rail, telecommunications, clean energy and logistics in the face of rising temperatures in parts of the continent, increased precipitation and flooding in others and rising sea levels due to climate change.
The Corporation’s unique ecosystem investment model, which focuses on value accretive beneficiation and import substitution, has been proven in Gabon where the ARISE Integrated Industrial Platform, a $1 billion wood-based export ecosystem, has been recognized as the first carbon neutral industrial zone in Africa, contributing $842 million to Gabon’s GDP and tripling jobs to over 34,000. Given its success in sustainably diversifying Gabon’s economy, creating jobs and ensuring high value creation, this model has been replicated at scale across the continent for other raw materials, including in Benin, Togo, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Nigeria and Chad.