Your Excellency, Daniel Chapo, President of the Federal Republic of Mozambique.
Honorable Carla Louveira, Minister of Economy and Finance of Mozambique.
Honorable Ministers and senior government officials.
The Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, Wamkele Mene.
Excellencies, Ambassadors and heads of diplomatic missions.
Heads of international organizations.
Alain Ebobise, Chief Executive Officer, Africa50.
Esteemed shareholders of Africa50.
Esteemed members of the Board of Directors of Africa50.
Senior management and staff of Africa50.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Your Excellency, Mr. President, I am delighted that you have honored us today with your presence for the General Shareholder Meeting of Africa50. I am grateful that you accepted to host this General Shareholders Meeting.
We are grateful for the generous hospitality and all the graciousness we have all received since we arrived in the beautiful city of Maputo.
I wear two hats as I address you today: first, as President of the African Development Bank Group, your bank; and second, as Chairman of Africa50, which was established by the African Development Bank Group.
Mozambique is a strong shareholder of the African Development Bank Group, which started operations in the country in 1977. Mozambique also joined Africa50 in 2024.
Your Excellency, President Chapo, I wish to start by formally congratulating you on your election as President of the Republic of Mozambique.
I commend you for the remarkable leadership that you have shown in stabilizing the country. Peace and stability are fundamental to spurring economic growth and development.
I wish to commend you and your government on the macroeconomic and fiscal stability of the country under your leadership.
The green shoots of your macroeconomic and fiscal policies are coming out.
Real GDP of Mozambique is estimated to increase to 2.5% in 2025 and 3.6% in 2026, due to the rebound in the extractive sector activities.
Congratulations, Mr. President!
Let me speak first with my hat on as President of the African Development Bank Group.
The African Development Bank has been a strong supporter of Mozambique. In the past ten years under my Presidency (2015-2025), we provided $1.6 billion to Mozambique.
To put this in perspective, this represents 41% of the total financing of the African Development Bank to Mozambique over the past 48 years.
The African Development Bank was a lead financier of Mozambique’s $20 billion Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) plant project, for which the Bank provided $400 million in senior debt financing. I wish to thank you, Mr. President, for your visiting the LNG project site in Cabo Delgado in February. Your leadership and visit reassured investors.
I am proud of what has been achieved, especially in the power sector, where our support for energy projects contributed significantly to the national energy access increasing from 30% in 2018 to 60% in 2024.
Our $34 million support for the Mozambique Energy for All Project provided access to electricity to over 45,500 households in under-electrified provinces such as Zambezia and Nampula, including about 14,000 female-headed households.
The African Development Bank also strongly supported the agriculture sector, with the development of special agro-industrial processing zones, for example in Pemba-Lichinga, one of the six such zones the Bank is supporting.
The Bank supported the development of the Nacala and Beira corridors, which are transforming trade and transport logistics, and improving regional trade for the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Let me shift to my second hat as Chairman of Africa50.
When the African Development Bank created Africa50, the vision was clear: develop a platform for mobilizing financing for infrastructure, with market rate of returns.
I am proud of what Africa50 has become today.
Within 8 years Africa50 has become a leader on infrastructure financing in Africa, thanks to the visionary leadership of our CEO, Alain Ebobise; its incredibly capable and talented staff; and support of the board of directors and our shareholders.
Today, Africa50’s shareholders have risen to 37, with 33 countries and 4 institutions.
From just one staff (Alain!) when we started 8 years ago, Africa50 now has 100 exceptional staff.
It is managing assets of over $1.4 billion. The total value of its portfolio companies is over $ 8 billion.
Africa50 is showing creativity and innovation on infrastructure financing.
It’s Africa Infrastructure Acceleration Fund raised $275 million from over 20 African institutional investors. This is a mark of strong confidence by institutional investors.
Africa50 is delighted to be working closely in partnership with Mozambique in areas that complement the work of the African Development Bank, especially in infrastructure, energy and transport.
- Africa50 is an equity investor in the 175 MW gas-fired power plant, Central Termica de Ressano Garcia (CTRG).
- Africa50 is finalizing the project development agreement for three transformation lines under an independent power transmission framework. This will be in partnership with Power Grid and Electricidade de Mozambique (EDM).
- Africa50 is expected to develop a Data Center Facility in Maputo City.
I am delighted that our shareholders are here in Maputo to witness the fruits of collaboration and partnerships.
Partnerships between the African Development Bank and Mozambique.
Partnerships between the African Development Bank and Africa50.
And partnerships between Africa50 and Mozambique.
Partnerships between the African Development Bank, Africa50 and Africa countries.
To close Africa’s $170 billion annual infrastructure financing gap, requires that we all continue to build and scale up partnerships.
Partnerships with multilateral and bilateral financial institutions.
Partnerships with investment banks and private equity funds.
Partnerships with institutional investors, from sovereign wealth funds to pension funds and insurance pool of funds.
Partnerships between countries to finance cross-national infrastructure, to spur regional integration and advance the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Together we are stronger.
Together, let us join our hands around the Baobab tree of infrastructure opportunities in Africa.
Your Excellency, President Chapo, thank you for stretching out to us your hands of partnership. You can count on the Africa50 and the African Development Bank Group to continue to support your visionary efforts to transform Mozambique.
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
My tenure as President of the African Development Bank Group, and as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Africa50, will end on September 1, 2025.
I am proud of all we have achieved together.
- The High 5s work of the African Development Bank impacted on the lives of 565 million people.
- The capital of the African Development Bank increased from $93 billion in 2015 to $318 billion today – the highest in the history of the African Development Bank since its establishment in 1964.
- The African Development Bank was ranked as the Best Multilateral Financing Institution in the World.
- The African Development Fund, our concessional financing institution, was ranked as the second-best concessional financing institution in the world, above all 55 concessional financing institutions in the OECD countries.
- The African Development Bank maintained its AAA global credit ratings for ten years, even in the most difficult economic times of Covid19 pandemic.
- The African Development Bank was ranked, for the past two consecutive years, as the Most Transparent Financial Institution in the World.
- The Africa Investment Forum (which we developed together with our partners, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Africa50, Africa Export-Import Bank, Trade and Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation, European Investment Bank, Islamic Development Bank and Arab Bank for Economic Development) mobilized over $225 billion in investment interest to Africa.
- Africa50 has become a globally respected infrastructure platform.
As Chairman of Africa50, I am confident that Africa50 will continue to grow in the years ahead, because its value proposition is strong.
Africa50 will be signing today Memorandums of Understanding with the Government of Mozambique; and also, with the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa (AGIA).
These further reinforce the strong value proposition of Africa50.
As Chairman of Africa50, let me assure all our partners.
- Africa50 is a good investment.
- Africa50 delivers impactful results.
- Africa50 delivers value for money.
- You can never go wrong with investing in Africa50.
Thank you all very much for your support and partnership.
As I move into a new future, Africa will always be on my mind.
Let me assure you, I will not be stepping back. I will be stepping forward in our collective drive to unlock global capital for Africa.
And Mozambique will remain dear to my heart.
Muito obrigado a todos.
Thank you very much.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).