Record €5bn EIB engagement in Africa in 2020
The European Investment Bank provided €5 billion for new private and public investment across Africa in 2020. This represented the largest annual EIB engagement in 55 years of operations on the continent and the largest support for climate action and investment in fragile states. Overall EIB backing for investment in Africa represented a 50% increase on engagement in the previous year.
Financing and technical support provided by the EIB in Africa last year is backing more than €12 billion of new investment to improve agriculture, access to off-grid renewable energy and accelerating rural electrification, affordable housing, communications, climate resilience and climate insurance for small holders, healthcare and private sector access to finance.
Overall EIB backing for investment in Africa represented a 50% increase on engagement in the previous year. The latest EIB engagement directly supported 58 projects in 28 African countries. In sub-Saharan Africa 71% of the new EIB engagement confirmed in 2020 is supporting investment in fragile states and least developed economies.
The new high impact projects backed by the EIB last year include securing access to clean drinking water for more than five million people in Egypt, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique and Tunisia, connecting rural communities to clean energy across Chad, the Comores, Gambia, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda and transforming waste management in secondary towns across Senegal.
