DFC equity investing in Africa to expand, with critical minerals in the pipeline
The US International Development Finance Corporation will make more direct equity investments in Africa, including in critical minerals, its regional managing director for Africa, Vibhuti Jain, has told Reuters. The DFC already has more than $14bn committed across the continent, with over $3bn of it in critical minerals.
More than $14bn of the US International Development Finance Corporation’s investment commitments are in Africa, over $3bn of them in critical minerals. Its regional managing director for Africa, Vibhuti Jain, has told Reuters that DFC equity will play a larger part as the agency expands.
In September the DFC committed up to $155m to WIOCC, an African digital infrastructure provider, in what Reuters described as the agency’s largest equity commitment to date. Jain said further equity projects were in the pipeline in Africa and in critical minerals, without naming them.
Where an investment is strategically significant, Jain said, the DFC will deploy equity “in addition to or in place of other instruments”, although debt finance and credit guarantees will remain the more common tools for some time. The shift comes as the United States works to reduce its dependence on China for the minerals behind electric vehicles and renewable energy.
The agency’s critical minerals pipeline in Africa includes rare earths developments and a graphite mine in Mozambique. It is also backing the rehabilitation of the Lobito Corridor, the rail route that carries copper and cobalt from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Angola’s Atlantic coast.
