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Private Sector
Leveraging the private sector to boost growth in Africa
The African Development Bank has made private sector development one of its key priorities for reducing poverty and supporting sustainable growth on the continent.
The implementation of the Bank's vision for the deployment of this sector combines three axes:
- Improve investment and business climate
- Enhance access to social and economic infrastructure
- Foster enterprise development
The African Development Bank’s Private Sector financing window invests in commercially and financially sound operations, including private and eligible state-owned enterprises, that can generate development impact in our regional member countries and contribute to our twin objectives - inclusive growth and transition to green growth.
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Examples of development impact include:
Socio-economic inclusion: creating jobs, improving livelihoods, increasing income opportunities, especially for women, youth and rural populations, or improving the availability and accessibility of services, especially in underserved areas.
Improved national and regional economic and social infrastructure: improved access to services, lower costs, increased reliability, stimulation of exports to regional and international markets.
Increased access to finance and deepening of the financial sector: easing of financing constraints for real sector companies and national or regional private institutions, and development of capital markets.
National and regional food security: strengthening the agricultural value chain in regional member countries.
Promotion of local entrepreneurship: support for private enterprises, including start-ups by women and young people, improvement of business practices through training and technology transfer, and support for innovative business models with demonstration effects.
Investments with sustainable impact: continued promotion and support of investment in non-sovereign operations to produce tangible economic, social and environmental impacts alongside financial returns.
Our value addition
More than a creditor, the African Development Bank is a strategic and trusted partner:
- AfDB has a long history of working on the continent with strong convening power and geographic and sectoral expertise, including in manufacturing, agribusiness and infrastructure (energy, transport, ICT, water and sanitation).
- With a local presence through its country offices, the African Development Bank has a good working knowledge of the realities on the ground.
- As a group that executes both sovereign and non-sovereign operations, the African Development Bank uses a holistic, coherent, synergetic and synchronized approach that addresses both the enablers of private sector development upstream and midstream (infrastructure, policy reforms, skills, etc.) as well as downstream investment in enterprise development.
- Through a wide regional network and unparalleled access to governments, private sector and other strategic stakeholders, AfDB can crowd-in private capital and facilitate third-party financing.
- Through its extensive financial solutions and patient capital, AfDB offers project developers and companies flexible financing options.
- Beyond financing, the African Development Bank can deploy a wide variety of tools including technical assistance, country risk mitigation, data and knowledge.
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News and Events
Publications
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Resources
Brochures
- AFAWA Brochure 2022
- Boost Africa Initiative FAQs
- The preferred partner - guide on the African Development bank’s private sector operations
- Private Equity in Africa: The role of the African Development Bank
- Investing with Impact
- The Non-Sovereign and Private Sector Support department – PINS
- Facilitating Private Sector Investments in Transition Countries
