Africa50 picks up the pace

The Africa50 fund is showing new vitality after getting off to a slow start. New chief executive Alain Ebobissé has built up his team and moved the fund out of the African Development Bank (AfDB) headquarters in an effort to assert its autonomy. The fund aims to line up more projects in the coming weeks and months. To considerable fanfare, the AfDB established Africa50 in 2012 to catalyse private investment in African infrastructure, with $812m of committed capital from 23 founding shareholder countries plus the AfDB, Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, and Bank Al-Maghrib, the Moroccan central bank.