OPIC, Calvert Foundation Finalize Support to PAMIGA Finance, Spreading Renewable Resources Access in Rural Africa
May 13, 2015
(OPIC)
OPIC-backed microfinance facility to issue nearly 100,000 loans and impact
the lives of almost 600,000 Africans
Targeted lending will spread access to renewable, off-grid solar energy and
micro-irrigation systems for populations previously underserved
WASHINGTON – The Overseas
Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government’s development
finance institution, and the Calvert Foundation today signed
financing agreements to expand the lending operations of Pamiga Finance S.A.
(PFSA), an impact investment company of the Participatory Microfinance Group
for Africa (PAMIGA), which for over a decade has been supporting access to
finance for poor individuals, households, small farms and businesses in rural
sub-Saharan Africa through its network of microfinance institutions.
OPIC’s $4.75 million senior debt joins $1.5 million from the Calvert Foundation
which will help form a new $12 million PFSA investment facility that is
projected to issue nearly 100,000 microloans over seven years in Benin, Burkina
Faso, Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, Tanzania, and Togo.
“Financing access to solar energy for the poor in rural Africa has a huge social
impact: more kids can study at night and in safer conditions; people can charge
their mobile phones to trade, send money, and communicate; public premises such
as markets, dispensaries, and schools get light and refrigeration. Small
entrepreneurs no longer depend upon rising oil prices to use their machinery.
Financing access to irrigation water enables the sub-Saharan farmers to no
longer depend upon the rain season and climate hazards. They can grow all year
round and improve their livelihood and food security whilst monitoring their
footprint on the environment,” said PFSA Chief Investment Officer Mathieu
Merceret.
“PAMIGA is a partner whose work is proven and whose lending network is
expansive. OPIC’s targeted support to PAMIGA will have an outsized effect in
empowering nearly 100,000 small businesses and farms across eight African
countries with the irrigation and renewable energy needed to make their
operations sustainable,” said Elizabeth Littlefield, OPIC’s President and CEO.
“This investment is also a terrific example of OPIC’s ability to advance some of
the most impactful private sector projects in the world. As the first project to
emerge from OPIC’s Portfolio for Impact pilot program, PAMIGA is proof that a
small group of focused visionaries can make a big difference with the right
support.”
OPIC’s financing represents two important milestones for the Agency. PFSA
initially received a small amount of early-stage capital from the African Clean
Energy Finance (ACEF) initiative, with U.S. State Department funding
administered by OPIC. Proving the catalytic model of this program, PFSA is the
first ACEF-supported project to subsequently receive OPIC project financing.
This program has become an essential part of President Obama’s Power Africa
Initiative.
OPIC’s loan to PFSA is also the first to be financed through the Portfolio for
Impact, an OPIC pilot program designed to support highly-developmental impact
investment projects that, due to size and structure, would otherwise face
difficulty in obtaining financing.
Further financial support for the establishment of the PFSA lending facility
came from the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation and the European
Investment Bank.
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