By African Export-Import Bank and the Development Bank of Southern Africa have established a joint facility that could provide up to $20 million to prepare infrastructure and industrial projects in South Africa and the wider Southern African region for investment.
Under the agreement, known as the Joint Project Preparation Facility (JPPF), each institution can contribute up to $10 million to support projects from the concept stage through to bankability, the institutions said in a statement on Friday.
The Afreximbank DBSA facility will focus on projects that support trade, industrial development and regional integration, with priority areas including power and energy, transport and logistics, information and communication technology and strategic minerals beneficiation.
The agreement extends cooperation between the two development finance institutions into the early stages of project development, where technical, financial and legal work is carried out before projects can attract major investment.
Afreximbank Executive Vice President for Intra-African Trade and Export Development Kanayo Awani said the facility was intended to address a shortage of projects prepared to standards required by investors and lenders.
“Africa’s infrastructure challenge is not only about shortage of capital; it is also about shortage of projects prepared to the standard required by investors and lenders,” Awani said, according to the statement.
The facility will allow Afreximbank and DBSA to jointly originate, screen and prioritise projects before supporting studies and other work required to make them investment-ready.
Projects developed through the Afreximbank DBSA partnership may subsequently seek financing from either institution, although such financing would remain subject to separate appraisal and approval.
The projects could also be presented to private investors, development finance institutions and commercial lenders, the institutions said.
DBSA Chief Investment Officer Gregory Fyfe said the agreement would strengthen the pipeline of bankable infrastructure and industrial projects in South Africa and the broader Southern African region.
The partnership combines Afreximbank’s focus on trade and industrialisation with DBSA’s infrastructure-development expertise, the institutions said.
Project preparation is a key stage in infrastructure development because potential projects often require feasibility studies, financial modelling, legal work, environmental assessments and other technical analysis before investors and lenders can assess them.
DBSA says inadequate project preparation can prevent projects from reaching a bankable stage and that its project-preparation activities are designed to identify and reduce risks before financing is mobilised.
The Afreximbank DBSA facility will initially focus on South Africa and the wider Southern African region, while allowing for possible consideration of projects in other African jurisdictions of mutual strategic interest.
The agreement also includes strategic minerals beneficiation among its priority areas, reflecting the region’s efforts to increase the processing and value addition of mineral resources before export.
The institutions said projects would be assessed against national, regional and continental development priorities. The facility is also intended to support regional integration under the Southern African Development Community and implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
The agreement follows South Africa’s accession to the Afreximbank Establishment Agreement in February 2026, when South Africa became the bank’s 54th member state. Afreximbank also announced an $8 billion country programme for South Africa at the time, according to the announcement.
The new facility also builds on a Master Risk Participation Agreement signed by Afreximbank and DBSA in February, extending their cooperation from financing arrangements into the upstream preparation of projects.
The Southern African Development Community’s own Project Preparation and Development Facility, implemented through DBSA, aims to provide technical assistance for project identification, preparation and feasibility studies so that projects can be presented to investors and lenders.
DBSA’s existing project-preparation programme covers sectors including energy, information and communications technology, water and sanitation and transport. Its project-preparation work is aimed at helping projects move from identification to financial close and implementation.
The Afreximbank DBSA agreement comes as African governments and development finance institutions seek to build larger pipelines of investment-ready infrastructure projects to support trade, industrialisation and cross-border connectivity.
The institutions said they would collaborate on project origination, preparation, knowledge-sharing and portfolio monitoring under the new facility.
