This latest IJGlobal podcast revives the “uncovered” series of interviews that delve into bigger picture market intelligence for infrastructure and energy.

The focus of this podcast turns to Africa and sees IJGlobal content director Angus Leslie Melville sit down for a chat with Roland Janssens – managing director of the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF).

In a 29-minute episode, Roland takes the listener through EAIF fundraising which – earlier this year (January 2024) – had raised $294 million of its $500 million target, and moves on to a slew of interesting transactions the fund is involved in.

You can access this latest episode on Apple Podcasts and through Player FM. It is also hosted across a slew of other platforms.

Roland runs through the role played by EAIF which was established as the first company within the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), a multi-donor organisation with members from 7 countries and the World Bank Group.

EAIF is managed by Ninety One, and it provides long-term debt to deliver infrastructure projects across Africa. It operates across 10 sectors in 20 African countries and typically lends between $10 million and $65 million over tenors of up to 15 years, with an option to extend up to 20 years.

The listener is taken through a round robin of interesting transactions the EAIF has supported in recent times, ranging from the Dakar Airport Road in Senegal through to the financing of a pan-African portfolio for Raxio Data Centres; the Eastcastle project to deliver tower infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; financing of the fully electric Dakar Bus Rapid Transit system (a first for the whole of Africa); Paratus, a data centre and fibre project in Côte d’Ivoire; and the 16MW solar PV plant with associated 20MW/h battery energy storage system for Africa REN in Senegal.