Partners of Africa’s CGP restate readiness

The six partners of the Africa Co-Guarantee Platform (CGP) have reaffirmed vows to better leverage guarantee and insurance products, resulting in increased trade and investment across Africa, amid growing urgency for instruments to de-risk investment across Africa.

The partners agreed to provide direct transaction support for a variety of initiatives, including infrastructure development and optimising balance sheets through risk sharing. To address concerns including intra-regional trade, the present food and fertiliser shortages, and improved coverage for infrastructure investments, public-private partnerships, and fragile/transition states and situations, they will create new and hybrid goods. Additionally, the CGP will work with stakeholders to increase capacity for using risk mitigation tools that improve project planning and bankability.

The African Development Bank, the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit Insurance, the African Union Development Agency, the African Trade Insurance Agency, the African Union Development Agency (ATI), GuarantCo, the Private Infrastructure Development Group, and Afreximbank, which hosted the steering committee meeting, are the partners involved in this alliance.

Kofi Asumadu-Addo, Director of Guarantees and Specialized Finance at Afreximbank, said in his opening statement: “This is a critical moment and the CGP is needed more than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine crises and the consequent macroeconomic challenges facing the continent require urgent action on our part as risk mitigation providers. Collectively, we have the capacity among the Platform partners to respond adequately and appropriately to help de-risk and attract investments into and across Africa. We need to bring this to bear in order to reduce the trade and investment financing gap. Afreximbank supports the CGP – but we want to see more concrete results.”

Max Ndiaye, the African Development Bank’s acting director of syndications, co-financing, and client solutions, said: “This platform was launched in 2018 by President Adesina and the senior leadership of the other partners to help overcome the clear risk mitigation gap in Africa, which stands in the way of closing more trade and investment deals. The urgency has only become greater since then. We need a transaction-focused platform that really delivers for our stakeholders.”

To provide details about the platform and its partner institutions, the Partners also developed the CGP’s website. A contact email address is also provided on the website for transactions and inquiries.