World Bank Approves $425m for Eastern, Southern Africa

By Adedapo Adesanya

The World Bank has approved the sum of $425 million in International Development Association (IDA) financing to support the provision of infrastructure finance in Eastern and Southern Africa.

This was disclosed in a statement released on Tuesday by the Bretton Wood institution, where it stated that this is the first regional facility of its kind on the African continent.

Through the Regional Infrastructure Financing Facility project (RIFF), the global lender aims to expand long-term finance to private firms in selected infrastructure in the power sector, as well as in the transport, logistics and social sectors.

According to the statement, Eastern and Southern Africa suffer from ailing infrastructure, especially in the power sector. Effective power generation in the region is less than the installed capacity by 20-30 percent due to drought, lack of maintenance, and general system losses of electricity in both transmission and distribution.

It estimated that such deficits cause about 2 percent loss of GDP growth in most of the countries, impeding a large number of the region’s population from access to energy.

It also noted that heavy public financing of infrastructure contributes to rising debt vulnerabilities and, before the outbreak of COVID-19, nearly half of the countries in the region were in debt distress.

Speaking on this, Ms Deborah Wetzel, World Bank Director of Regional Integration for Sub-Saharan Africa said, “The COVID-19 pandemic threatens the development gains made over the past years.

“The new operation will help address the long-term infrastructure funding gap through a regional approach focused on private financing, with the objective to mobilize about $975 million of private finance in addition to the funds provided by IDA. T

“his requires a broader approach, including an enabling environment for private capital mobilization, sound public debt management, bankable projects, long-term finance, and risk mitigation”.

Through the Trade Development Bank (TDB), the RIFF will provide long-term infrastructure finance that would contribute to job creation and would present cross-border benefits in terms of trade and investment flows or transfers of technology.

It will also facilitate access to debt financing for SMEs in infrastructure value chains and off-grid, by helping them to keep running and expanding to underserved markets.

In the context of the COVID-19, the RIFF’s focus on off-grid solar solutions will contribute to preserve households’ livelihoods by supporting micro-entrepreneurial activities that play a critical role in income generation in poor communities.

The Project will take a regional approach to address the financing needs of private sector infrastructure companies, by building capacity in regional institutions, TDB and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), to provide a longer and sustainable source of infrastructure finance and to support the enabling environment for infrastructure finance. Infrastructure is expected to be a key driver of economic recovery post-COVID-19.