European Financing Partners replenished with EUR 230 million
European Financing Partners replenished with EUR 230 million
18/05/2009
The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI) have agreed to replenish the co-financed facility European Financing Partners with EUR 230 million to finance private sector investments in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP).
Press Release, Cologne, 8 May 2009
EDFI members and the EIB signed a new agreement for European Financing Partners S.A. (EFP) at a meeting in Cologne on May 8th, committing an additional EUR 230 million to the investment matching facility. The funding will be provided by the Cotonou Investment Facility through the EIB (EUR 100 million) and by following EDFI members (EUR135 million): BIO (Belgium), CDC (United Kingdom), Cofides (Spain), DEG (Germany), Finnfund (Finland), FMO (the Netherlands), IFU (Denmark), Norfund (Norway), OeEB (Austria), Proparco (France), Sifem (Switzerland) and Swedfund (Sweden).
The EFP initiative was created in 2003 with the double aim of promoting sustainable development of the private sector in ACP States and strengthening cooperation between eligible European Development Finance Institutions and the EIB. EFP is a Luxembourg‐based investment company and has since approved financing to 25 private sector enterprises in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific at a total amount of EUR 280 million.
An evaluation of EFP undertaken by the Operations Evaluation Department of the EIB in 2008/2009 concludes that “the EFP initiative is clearly in line with European development cooperation polices and with a number of joint statements on aid harmonization put forward by the international community. It has also been a concrete step forward in implementing the Framework Agreement on financial cooperation and exchange of services signed by the European Partners in 2003. This evaluation has highlighted that, while sharing the common objectives of EFP, its members participate with their own institutional agendas: larger partners focus on financial leverage and risk sharing while smaller partners focus on the exchange of experience and best practices. These diverse strategic objectives are not only coherent with the objectives of the EFP, but greatly contribute to achieve them. Through its operation, the EFP has proved to be an effective and efficient instrument in strengthening cooperation among partners. Furthermore, overall the partners feel satisfied with the experience and provide concrete examples of reinforced cooperation.”
EFP has financed projects in 11 ACP countries in the following sectors: agribusiness, banking, communication, health, hotels, housing, industry, infrastructure, power and air transport.
The EIB’s Vice President responsible for lending operations in the ACPs, Plutarchos Sakellaris and the Chairman of EDFI, Luc Rigouzzo, expressed their commitment to the EFP initiative at the signing ceremony in Cologne. VP Sakellaris said,“We at the EIB have been encouraged by the manner in which the EFP initiative has been utilized to date to fund private sector projects in the ACP regions which foster economic growth and lead to an overall reduction in poverty. These are precisely the lending objectives of the EIB in the ACPs and we are delighted to show our support for this European collaborative initiative with a further injection of capital of EUR 100 million."
Luc Rigouzzo said that “EFP has contributed to increasing the visibility of European development cooperation. Extensive harmonization of guidelines, procedures and processes among the partners, enabling them to delegate tasks to the institutions in charge of the individual projects, has made EFP a very efficient vehicle for co‐financing, which is being closely watched by other institutions considering establishing a similar platform.”
For further information, please contact:
EIB, Una Clifford, tel. +352 4379 83326, u.clifford@eib.org; or visit http://www.eib.org/lending/acp
EDFI, Jan Rixen, tel. +32 2 230 2369 jan.rixen@edfi.eu or visit http://www.edfi.eu
Finnfund, Helena Arlander, tel. +358 9 3484 3335, firstname.lastname@finnfund.fi
