Proparco, the private sector arm of the French Development Agency (AFD), and Côte d'Ivoire signed three financing agreements worth €32.5 million on Saturday 21 December 2019.

The first agreement signed with Société Générale Côte d'Ivoire (SGCI) is estimated at €15 million and concerns a pilot project which will enable the development of a guarantee offer for short-term Trade Finance operations.

Valued at €10 million and €7.5 million respectively, the last two agreements signed with SGCI and the NSIA bank fall within the framework of the SUNREF project, which enables companies to combat the disruption of climate change.

Launched in March 2019 by the French government at a total cost of €2.5 billion, the Choose Africa initiative is designed to finance and support African start-ups, very small businesses and SMEs.

To date, €1 billion has been committed to finance African start-ups, VSEs and SMEs, more than a third of which, €370 million, is concentrated in West Africa and around €100 million in Côte d'Ivoire.

André Chadrak