The third edition of the Africa Investment Forum was scheduled to take place in hybrid format in Abidjan in December 2021, but was postponed due to the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. This year, the event will be held from March 15 to 17 by videoconference. Several bankable projects worth more than $50 billion will be presented at this major event.
The Africa Investment Forum is a multi-stakeholder, multidisciplinary platform that advances public-private-private partnership projects to the stage of bankability, mobilizing capital and accelerating agreements towards financial closure of transactions. The event takes place through boardroom sessions (trading rooms), one of the key components of the initiative. According to the founding partners of the Africa Investment Forum, the boardroom sessions will be held from 15 to 17 March, for discussions aimed at advancing transactions in the pipeline since 2021. Forty-five transactions worth $57.4 billion were selected for boardroom discussions. According to the organizers, these transactions have a total potential of 3.8 million jobs, both direct and indirect, including one million for African women and entrepreneurs, and another million for young people. For Africa Investment Forum Director Chinelo Anohu, beyond promoting investment, Africa Investment Forum works to promote a business-friendly environment in African countries.
The Africa Investment Forum has completed 10 transactions valued at $3.1 billion and currently has 136 transactions valued at $87.52 billion in its portfolio. The President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, stressed the importance of prioritizing Africa’s health care security and sovereignty, underpinned by three pillars: building quality health infrastructure, developing the continent’s pharmaceutical industry and increasing vaccine manufacturing capacity. He hoped that many of the founding partners of the Africa Investment Forum would play a role in the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa, an initiative of the African Development Bank, the African Export-Import Bank, the African Union Commission and AUDA-NEPAD. This partnership will leverage up to $500 million in capital for early-stage project development and preparation to catalyze greener, large-scale bankable infrastructure projects in a timely manner. Other topics for discussion included the role of the African Continental Free Trade Area in the development of regional markets and Africa’s energy transition.
