OREANDA-NEWS. On February 29, 2016, during the joint business development mission between the African Development Bank’s Infrastructure Finance and PPP Division and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in East Africa, the EARC Regional Director Gabriel Negatu met with Kenya’s Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, Joseph Njoroge, in Nairobi.

Negatu took the opportunity to discuss the Bank’s High Five priorities with particular emphasis on the Bank’s New Deal on Energy for Africa, which is a partnership-driven effort with the aspirational goal of achieving universal access to energy in Africa by 2025. The mission also met with the Cabinet Secretary of Transport, James Macharia, on February 26, 2016 to discuss priority projects in the transport sector that could benefit from the two institutions’ investment.   

In the spirit of partnerships and as envisioned in the New Deal on Energy, the mission was jointly conducted with the IFC, with the main goal of identifying new infrastructure opportunities in the region that can benefit from the two institutions’ resources and various funding instruments.

Undertaking the mission jointly with the IFC, the two institutions are leveraging their strengths and experience to generate new bankable projects to which they can deploy the various products they offer. The Bank’s team was led by the Manager of the Infrastructure Finance and PPP Division, Angela Nalikka, while the IFC mission was led by Koffi Klousseh, Principal Investment Officer, Africa Infrastructure.

In addition to Kenya, the mission will also cover Rwanda and Tanzania, whereas other countries in the region including Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda and Burundi will be covered in the second quarter of this year.

Several opportunities have been identified in Kenya in several infrastructure sectors including power and transport. Opportunities in the transport sector include toll-road projects, the road annuity programme, expansion of the Mombasa Port, establishment of a special economic zone and the construction of the second runway at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. In the energy sector, projects in both renewable and non-renewable sub-sectors have been identified for the Bank’s intervention.