The African Development Bank alongside Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC), African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI) and GuarantCo, have launched a Co-Guarantee Platform (CGP).

GCP, an innovative and collective de-risking instrument, was created to address the perceived high risk across the continent and the lack of capacity of traditional lenders to provide risk mitigation products for projects.


Akinwunmi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group, said: “There are many guarantee providers that can offer various types of credit enhancement and risk mitigation instruments in Africa, but cooperation among them has been either non-existent or on an ad hoc basis. Hence the need for a more formal collaboration among guarantee providers to maximize the use of their products in Africa.”

The platform is intended to increase the volume of insurance and guarantee solutions available to project sponsors and their bankers in a market-responsible manner. 

The objective is to mobilize greater amounts of investment that would otherwise not take place in the region in the absence of affordable risk mitigation products. 

The Platform is expected to enhance the relevance of the respective institutions’ instruments in the Region by implementing joint risk mitigation transactions.  



The platform is open to more participants including official development institutions and the private sector. 

This initiative will have a global outreach and aim at crowding in reluctant risk mitigation and credit enhancement providers across the world to make more projects happen in Africa- on more affordable terms for both African and foreign investors and lenders alike.



Philippe Valahu, CEO, Private Infrastructure Development Group, said: “GuarantCo is delighted to participate in the Co-Guarantee

Platform, particularly as it draws on our extensive experience in delivering guarantee and credit enhancement solutions in Africa. This initiative enables us to collaborate with institutions that share a similar vision as us; not only by recognising the deployment of capital and investment on the continent but, most importantly, by enabling local capital markets through risk mitigation solutions.” 

“We hope that the joint capacity, as created through this initiative, will result in more efficient information sharing, a better overview of risk across the continent and mobilisation of greater guarantee capacity,” he added.

Bandar M. H. Hajjar, President of the Islamic Development Bank Group, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment & Export Credit (ICIEC), said: “ICIEC intends to avail its services, expertise and network to cooperate with the participants of the Co-Guarantee Platform, in order to structure collectively innovative risk mitigation solutions that will help to facilitate and mobilize funding capacity for medium and long tenor projects in Africa.”