Infra Dig – Ecobank discusses African infra

The evolving landscape of financing infrastructure and energy across Africa is the focus for this latest episode of Infra Dig, the podcast service brought to you by IJGlobal. 

Angus Leslie Melville – editorial director of IJGlobal – talks to Meinna Gwet, group head of corporate finance at Ecobank, and the conversation centres on the African lending environment. 

This latest episode runs for a little more than 33 minutes and sees Meinna give a helicopter view of the market, running through the financing environment with specific examples.

This latest episode can be accessed on Spotify (embedded above) as well as through Apple Podcasts and on the Amazon service. It is also hosted across a slew of other platforms, open access on all of them.

Ecobank is the largest pan-African bank and the majority of project finance of infrastructure and energy is arranged by the team that Meinna leads.

Meinna (pictured right) takes the listener through the evolution of project finance / infra lending across the continent which – in the past – had been dominated by development finance institutions (DFI) but nowadays is operating as a more mature market with reigional commercial lenders playing their part.

“We're now seeing an increasing risk appetite from local commercial banks like Ecobank when it comes to contributing to the development of Africa – and infrastructure is a big part of it,” says Meinna

“We've seen a progressive shift when it comes to DFIs that historically used to fund very large infrastructure projects, often sponsored by governments and backed by a bunch of multilateral agencies like the World Bank.”

As the African lending community has built confidence – with Ecobank in the vanguard – the crowding in effect has brought numerous lenders to the table and built confidence across the continent to support investments.

Tune in to this latest episode to hear all about it…