AfDB injects €5m into Francophone West Africa private equity fund

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a €5 million equity investment in a private equity fund which will invest in key sectors with regional expansion potential in French-speaking West Africa, officials say November 23, 2011.

According to the AfDB, the decision for the investment was taken November 16, 2011.

The fund, called Cauris Croissance II, the AfDB said in a statement “will focus on areas such as financial services, general manufacturing and services, information and communications technology, and infrastructure service industries in Burkina Faso, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.”

The Fund is run by Lomé-based Cauris Management which, between 1999 and 2009, increased the aggregate number of permanent jobs from 1,340 to 2,456, of which 334 went to women, said the Bank.

Based on the new Fund’s indicative pipeline, the AfDB says it is expecting that about 1,100 jobs will be created, of which 149 are expected to go to women.

By Ekow Quandzie