The Development Finance Institution, Proparco aims to increase the investment movement in Kenya and Africa continent by 2025 with a 50 percent main goal.
The Development Agency in France mentioned that it will capitalize on the African continent to support experts in businesses.
The firm will only support infrastructural projects that are important for the deployment of African businesses, besides assisting SMEs, microbusinesses, and high-impact start-ups.
It will prioritize projects that alleviate climate change as well as reduce territorial, gender, or socio-economic inequalities.
Such projects will strengthen local production and processing capacities for vulnerable local companies affected by major global crises such as Covid-19’s economic impact and the Ukraine war.
“Impacts will be identified and analysed at all stages of the relationship with Proparco’s partners; from the beginning of project appraisal through a sustainable development rating, through project implementation thanks to more extensive and longer-term technical support, and up to the final evaluation through the analysis and monitoring of results (both estimated and actual),” Proparco said in a statement.
“Thus, the impact from projects carried out by our partners will not be limited to the final and quantitative results of the project but will also include projects’ capacity to evolve in terms of ESG criteria, which will enhance sustainability over the long term,” it added.
African SMEs and micro-businesses have contributed largely to the economic developments and innovations on the continent only that a majority of them cannot access capital to grow their businesses and 20% can access bank loans.
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“We are determined to go where other investors have not yet gone, by moving closer to the field to be as close as possible to our partners’ and their needs, to deploy our resources effectively,” Françoise Lombard, Proparco Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said.
He added, “We are therefore making a big call towards enabling growth in new markets and taking more risk to help more innovative projects to bear fruit.”
For this to happen, Proparco expects increased funding, any non-financial support and additional resources from the French government and the European Union.
Proparco partly possesses a significant stake in Naivas Supermarket in Kenya. Between 2018 and 2022, the company committed Ksh.502 billion to Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, and Nigeria.
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