Investment Promotion

Investment Promotion

Make the water sector more attractive to investors and private operators.

The investment promotion priority aims to increase the number of investment projects and amounts of funding for water in Africa, beyond what AWF can achieve through the specific projects it prepares, and at the same time contribute to accelerating the process from project identification to financial close.

AWF aims to galvanise interest in sector amongst financiers, and in particular, make the sector more attractive to private investors and operators.

AWF will assume a broader role as facilitator between project sponsors and financiers through a variety of investment promotion services that aim to address the investment bottlenecks relating to

the lack of awareness, primarily by the private sector, of the opportunities in the water sector;
the lack of familiarity, primarily by the public sector, of risk mitigation measures available to support commercial financing of water-related projects.

A range of investment promotion services will be offered to increase the number of investment opportunities in the water sector and to mobilise higher levels of financing for projects, in particular from the private sector.

The main interventions include:

the establishment of a networking platform to market investment project opportunities and connect project sponsors with potential financiers, thereby accelerating potential deal flow;
the establishment of an insurance / guarantee brokerage function to assist project sponsors in the uptake and use of risk-mitigation instruments.

This new strategic focus will be allocated up to 10% of the overall program budget.