The general director of Proparco, Gregory Clemente has just presented, this Thursday, June 13, 2019, the program called « Choose Africa. » This French initiative aims to accelerate the growth of small and medium enterprises in Africa including the DRC. It was during a press exchange organized on the sidelines of the activities of the sixth French Week in Kinshasa.

Indeed, « Choose Africa » is an initiative of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to support projects structuring African entrepreneurs. It is supported by the French Development Agency (AFD), of which Proparco is the structure dedicated to the private sector.

10,000 VSEs / SMEs targeted by 2022

It is a total of more than 2.5 billion euros that are dedicated to the financing of the 10,000 VSE / SME by 2022.

According to the CEO of Proparco, € 1 billion will be invested in equity either through direct investments in companies or through investments in private equity funds oriented to SMEs.

And 1.5 billion euros will be in line of credit and guarantees. These credit lines will be granted to local banks and dedicated to SMEs or guarantees given to banks to cover the risk.

« What is planned is to develop our business more than what we have in our portfolio today. To have a particular attention with regard to startups who emerge here in the DRC. And through this initiative and the ability we have to deploy certain number of financial instruments, we want to accompany them », said Gregory Clemente.

Three types of accompaniment

As a gateway to all AFD and Proparco financing and back-up solutions, Choose Africa provides support to VSEs / SMEs in three areas: financing, technical support and support for the business ecosystem.

« There is no envelope reserved for the DRC even less to each country. It’s really about seeing what the opportunities are in the sectors we want to focus on: infrastructure, renewable energy, education, health, and so on. We will look at the various projects that are presented to us and we will be able to finance and / or support entrepreneurs according to the quality of their project », reassured Gregory Clemente.

And to improve the quality of projects, Choose Africa has the ability to mobilize both human and financial resources to help structure VSEs / SMEs to access funding. In the DRC, we learn, several initiatives already benefit from this support.

In addition, the Choose Africa program also has a dimension called « Digital Africa », which aims to support project leaders, start-ups through technical assistance and capacity building, work on the environment, the incubation of start-ups to develop their initiatives through a range of possible funding.

It is a platform that is specifically set up to inform and guide SMEs. www.choose-africa.com will allow them to inform themselves and be oriented towards financing or support solutions made available by the AFD Group.

As well, it will enable local financial intermediaries (banks, investment funds, microfinance institutions, etc.) to learn about the AFD Group’s offer, enabling them to mobilize additional financing for VSEs / SMEs.

Eric TSHIKUMA