IFC strengthens team to ‘raise investment impact’ in Africa

The announcement came as the IFC, part of the World Bank Group, appointed its former senior manager for the Central Africa sub-region, Cheikh Oumar Seydi, as regional director for the entire sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region.

In addition, the IFC said two associate directors would be appointed, reporting to Seydi, to boost its investment strategy. One of the new appointees will cover Western and Central Africa, based in Dakar, and the other will cover Eastern and Southern Africa, based in Nairobi.

Seydi said: “IFC has a strong franchise in Africa and we have the opportunity to increase our impact by ensuring that private investment plays a much larger role in the continent’s development.”

“IFC will work across the World Bank Group and with other partners to provide private investors with the products and services they require to de-risk projects,” Seydi said. “IFC aims to increase our impact by supporting reforms that promote the private sector at-large, including leveraging the results of the IFC-World Bank Doing Business reports.”

IFC chief executive officer Philippe Le Houerou said: “Africa is a priority for IFC, and Oumar’s leadership will help us play a growing role to catalyse private investment in the continent. Our goal is to work with the private sector and with governments to create markets throughout Africa, including in fragile situations, to provide more opportunities and more jobs for people.”

The IFC said it expects “strong growth” in the region after providing $2.4bn “new long term investments and mobilisations” in SSA in 2016 and $1.5bn “in short term investments”.

An additional $700 million was injected into the region by the IFC on behalf of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency – another arm of the World Bank that promotes foreign direct investment by providing political risk guarantees and credit enhancements to investors.

The IFC said its priorities in Africa include “bridging the infrastructure gap… and promoting access to finance through financial institutions”.

Over the last fiscal year, the IFC said its advisory services spending in Africa reached $65m, with 126 active projects in 42 countries “valued at $217m over the life of the projects”.

Earlier this year, the IFC, together with Google Inc., Convergence Partners and Mitsui & Co., agreed to invest up to $100m in CSquared – a partnership focused on deploying “wholesale, carrier-neutral, open-access fibre optic networks” across SSA.