"The projects in Angola and Mozambique are more advanced, having already two credit lines approved by the ADB recently with a global value of 70 million dollars to support Small and Medium Enterprises in these countries through commercial banking," said Mateus Magala in an interview with Lusa from Abidjan, the bank's headquarters.
"These projects are strategically aligned with each country's national development plans, as well as with the ADB's five operational priority areas, the 'High 5' (Lighting and Electrifying Africa, Feeding Africa, Integrating Africa, Industrializing Africa and Improving the quality of life of people in Africa)," he added, not specifying which projects specifically will be funded under the innovative model of monitoring projects in Portuguese-speaking African countries.
"In general, potential structuring projects have been identified in all PALOP [Portuguese-speaking African Countries] member countries in the areas of infrastructure, agriculture, energy, health, finance, and industries for a global amount of 3 billion dollars," answered the banker when asked about the concrete projects that will be funded.
The Lusophone Compact is an innovative model for financing projects in Portuguese-speaking African countries, in which Portugal, which has a 400 million euro guarantee in this year's State Budget, and the AfDB play a key role in financing, preparing, monitoring and executing projects.
"The ADB is the main funder of the Lusophone Compact projects, through the resources allocated (made available) to the countries and the leverage it makes through partnerships with other economic agents, including the private sector," said Mateus Magala when asked who actually finances the projects.
"The 400 million euro Guarantee made available by the Portuguese Government will mitigate the risk of potential projects involving some Portuguese participation or co-participation, leveraging existing ADB resources, up to six times for these countries, thus increasing the number of private projects and public-private partnerships financed by the ADB in these countries," explained the vice president of Africa's largest multilateral bank.
In addition, the AfDB also acts as a fund-raiser, since the bank's participation in the projects reduces the risk perceived by investors, thus generally lowering the cost of investments and financing itself.
"The AfDB, through a trade union, will mobilize additional financial resources from other international financial institutions to finance Compact projects; an accelerating platform is the Africa Investment Forum, which brings together investors at the global level, with promoters with structuring projects in Africa," bringing in other partners, such as "African and non-African development finance institutions like the European Investment Bank," he said.
