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US Private Investment Initiatives Pump Billions Into Africa

Anita Powell

   JOHANNESBURG - How big is the U.S. commitment to Africa?
   Let us count the ways, says Victoria Whitney, chief operating officer
   of the Prosper Africa initiative, launched in 2018. She says that in
   the past year, the initiative, which spans 17 U.S. government agencies,
   has facilitated more than $22 billion worth of deals in more than 30
   African countries, with agreements focusing on small and medium-sized
   African businesses.
   This week, she announced new measures that aim to harness private U.S.
   investment and pour it into African entrepreneurship.
   "This new continent-wide program is going to provide a really wide
   range of services -- think business consulting and transition
   facilitation, targeted policy interventions, really the core tenets of
   the Prosper Africa Initiative -- and is expected to deliver billions
   more dollars in exports and investment and create hundreds of thousands
   of jobs by 2026," she told journalists in a teleconference. "I really
   think this new program is going to be a game changer."
   Prosper Africa is one of many U.S. government initiatives aimed at
   bringing private investment into the continent.
   The International Development Finance Corporation is the federal
   government's development finance institution. It works on financing
   private development projects in lower- and middle-income countries.
   Since its launch at the beginning of 2020, it has invested more than $8
   billion in 300 projects in Africa, along with the U.S. Agency for
   International Development, which is working on $10 billion worth of
   deals.
   "Adam Boehler, Prosper Africa's executive chair as well as CEO of the
   DFC, he describes it really well in the way that he does," Whitney
   said. "He said, for years we lacked the type of investment
   infrastructure to really be on the board. And when people would sort of
   say, where is the United States, well, we didn't have the best answer.
   But because of the BUILD Act, because of Prosper Africa, we do have an
   answer. We're saying, we're new but we're big time, as he had said, and
   you're going to see much, much more from us."

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