Business
Africa’s premier infrastructure summit, AFC Live, has welcomed more than 600 leading thinkers from government, academia, business and finance and fuelled ground breaking debate on both the opportunities and the challenges of investing in infrastructure in Africa.
Keynote speakers including Yemi Osinbajo, acting president of Nigeria, and Chukwuma Soludo, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, highlighted the need for African led-initiatives to drive the infrastructure revolution. The acting president praised hosts Africa Finance Corporation, AFC, for bringing together the public and private sector to develop Africa’s much-needed infrastructure projects and joined ministers of finance, trade and economy from Nigeria, The Gambia and Uganda respectively to debate some of the industry’s key challenges and opportunities, including how to make infrastructure projects bankable.
Andrew Alli, president and chief executive of the AFC who opened the Summit on Monday, May 15, commented on the importance of project development expertise in African infrastructure investment: “The earliest stage of conception and development of any project is crucial. Private capital will not come to invest in African infrastructure if projects are not sustainable and bankable.
“By focusing on supporting project development and using our local knowledge and sector expertise to identify and mitigate risks, we can help accelerate the number of viable, bankable projects across the continent, creating the market for other forms of capital to follow, and ultimately bridge the investment divide that currently exists.”
Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, would close proceedings on Wednesday evening, May 17, highlighting how trends in the global economy will impact African markets over the next ten years.
The AFC Live coincides with the AFC’s 10th anniversary, that sees the Corporation celebrating a decade of pioneering infrastructure investment and project development, over which it has invested approximately $4 billion across 30 countries.
At the summit, AFC also launched its pioneering infrastructure investment report in conjunction with Boston Consulting Group, BCG. The report proposes guidelines for the public and private sector for investing in infrastructure and highlights best practice case studies in the industry including Cenpower Kpone IPP, Ghana, and Henri Konan Bédié Bridge, Côte d’Ivoire.
The summit is sponsored by international law firm, Hogan Lovells; professional services company, KPMG; an international petroleum group, Petrolin Group; and leading credit and political risk Insurance Broker, Texel Finance Limited.
— May 17, 2017 @ 13:10 GMT
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