1. Introducing TDB Group: Mandate, evolution, and impact as one of Africa’s leading regional development finance institutions.
The Trade and Development Bank Group (TDB Group) was established as PTA Bank in 1985 by COMESA Member States to finance trade and transformational projects in the region. It was conceived as a supranational entity to tackle regional financing gaps and market failures, particularly the limited access to and high costs of finance in the region.
Our institution has progressed significantly through reforms and innovations, becoming increasingly fit-for-purpose to adapt to changing times and deliver on our mandate to finance and foster trade, regional economic integration, and sustainable development in Africa.
Over the past four decades, we have evolved into a fully-fledged specialised African multilateral development banking group, with a diversified stable of vehicles under our various subsidiairies and strategic business units (SBUs). These deploy financial and non-financial services in trade and development banking, asset management, concessional and impact financing, captive insurance, as well as capacity-building.
We have as well expanded our geographic scope and now have presence in every African sub-region, to be in a position to leverage on different countries’ comparative advantages and the breadth of regional complementarities which are not only within the Eastern and Southern part of the continent – the region initially covered by our Bank, but indeed across Africa. Expanding our institution’s reach was vital to more effectively support continental trade, industrial development, and infrastructure, ultimately, to advance sustainable development across the continent.
Our beginnings were modest, with only 11 founding shareholders and just $15 million in equity, which was paid in over time. Today, we have over $10 billion in assets and our shareholder capital has grown to approximately $2.3 billion, with 26 Member States in every African sub-region, 2 non-regional member countries, and over 80 sovereign and institutional shareholders across TDB Group and its subsidiaries.
Since our inception, TDB Group has disbursed $36 billion in financing and issued $22 billion in guarantees, for a cumulative throughput of $58 billion, with $55 billion delivered in just the last 15 years. We have supported over 1.3 million jobs, more than half benefiting women, and estimate that 16 million individuals have directly benefitted from our activities.
2. Leadership vision of Admassu Tadesse: strategic priorities, reforms and achievements under his tenure
In addition to the Bank’s transformation into a group and its geographical expansion as covered under the 1st question, in the past 15 years or so, several far-reaching reforms were undertaken in the Bank’s governance, capital and organizational structures, complemented by the establishment of centers of excellence in treasury, lending operations, investor relations, human capital management, and risk management.
In 2017, TDB achieved its first investment-grade ratings, which enabled it to intermediate and derisk the flow of global and regional capital into the region – most of the time on better terms than our public and private sector clients could secure independently, and in some cases, on any terms at all.
Underpinning these efforts are the people at the heart of these operations, the right technologies and structures, and importantly, the sound governance that has been put into place.
This is what has made it possible to build an institution that has garnered the long-term support and trust of strategic partners across the globe, in Asia, the Gulf, North America, Europe, and of course Africa itself – and strong partnerships have been key catalysts to our success.
In line with the latter, we will continue to remain fast on our feet, purpose-driven, and eager to innovate to respond to the triple bottom-line imperatives of the continent. In terms of strategic priorities, as more detailed under the next question, this will also mean more support to regional integration initiatives in line with the ambitions of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the pursuit of a regional approach to industrial development, and the deepening of focused partnerships, including with the Gulf.
Much has already been covered under the first question in terms of achievements in broad terms.
3. Driving Regional Integration & Trade: TDB Group’s role in financing intra-Africa trade, value chains, and cross-border economic collaboration.
Sustainable development in Africa centers on economic integration, encompassing markets, industrial growth, and infrastructure. We have expanded our geographic scope in line with these imperatives, to better take advantage of regional complementarities as I mentioned earlier.
In trade, we have been financing several billions of dollars in transactions on a yearly basis to support food and energy security, the availability of pharmaceuticals, the import of specialised equipment, as well as exporting and forex generating companies from our region. An example of intra-African trade is the financing of intra-African trade of fertilisers from Morocco into Ethiopia which we have been doing for several years now, supporting food security, increased productivity, famers’ livelihoods, and forex revenues from commercial crops.
In industry, we have financed several cement plants in different Member States, which has crowded in intra-African investments, shaping countries’ industrial landscapes, supporting their infrastructure and reducing their dependence on external markets. In this spirit, we have also supported pharmaceutical plants and a vaccine production facility in the region.
In infrastructure, in addition to financing several of our Member States’ national airlines to support connectivity, we have participated in the financing of Tanzania’s standard gauge railway which will be connecting several of our mostly landlocked Member States like DR Congo, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda. We have also contributed to the financing of the transformational fiber-optic cable project in Burundi, connecting the country to East African undersea cables, and supported multiple energy, transition energy and renewable energy projects and important transactions across the continent.
Development financing is deployed through our trade and development banking SBU via loans and guarantees, alongside grants through our concessional window, the Trade and Development Fund (TDF) as part of its solutions tailored for select groups of clients. At times, we provide equity and quasi-equity financing, as it was the case with the landmark Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya. Our asset management operations which I refer to further down in the interview equally support trade and a host of sectors like agriculture, healthcare, financial services and infrastructure.
Notwithstanding the fact that several international banks have been accelerating their retreat from the continent because of heighted global macroprudential constraints, thereby widening the access to financing gaps – the financing of African development and intra-African trade and supporting projects which involve regional value propositions, including required value chains, must be a strategic priority of African financial institutions, especially of those with sustainable development as their raison d’être.
For effective cross-border collaborations between Africa and other regions, as obvious as it sounds, we must be agile in crafting win-win partnerships which can deliver mutual growth and development.
I am pleased to share that we developed excellent partnerships with many GCC-based financial institutions, including from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, as well as multilateral development finance institutions like the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) and the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB), in addition to dozens of commercial banks, export credit agencies, insurance companies and others. With these, we have co-financed impactful transactions and entered into risk-sharing agreements, some have invested in our equity and hybrid capital, and extended lines of credit, while many others have invested in our Eurobonds as well as arranged and participated in our syndicated loans. Islamic finance has also been part of the equation.
Just recently in 2025, we won an award for Local Currency Loan Deal of the Year at the Global Banking & Markets Middle East Awards for a UAE-denominated loan arranged by Mashreq, one of our many partners in the UAE, alongside many others like First Abu Dhabi Bank, Emirates NBD, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah, the Commercial Bank of Dubai, United Arab Bank, Sharjah Islamic Bank, Waha Capital, the Abu Dhabi Exports Office (ADEX), the export-financing arm of Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), and many others.
4. Innovating Through Financial Solutions: Blended finance, green bonds, ESG instruments, and new digital tools introduced by TDB Group.
Blended Finance
We often like to say that TDB Group itself is a blended entity and blender by nature, both in terms of ‘money in’ and ‘money out’.
In terms of equity, TDB Group, through its stable of vehicles, blends both private and public capital at capital structure levels. TDB’s shareholding is purely public, with a blend of sovereign, public sector and sovereign-owned MDB equity. TDF, our concessional financing vehicle, is also completely public-owned by Member States and TDB. However, some of its subsidiaries have both public and private shareholding, as is allowed under relevant frameworks. A good example is the African trade fund ESATF which has several domestic and international public and private sector institutional investors such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, and insurance and reinsurance companies. It is akin to the formula used by the IFC Asset Management Company which, like the Group’s trade asset management company, manages third-party capital through funds.
TDF which supports the sustainable development agendas of its Member States – providing them with alternative financing solutions, such as concessional and impact-driven funding, risk-sharing solutions, and technical assistance, including through programme management and MSME finance – has blended finance at the core of its value proposition. It particularly focuses on initiatives which are difficult to finance on commercial terms.
Via treasury operations, TDB Group mobilises resources from multilateral and bilateral banks, commercial banks, investors, philanthropic organisations and other partners from across the globe, through capital market issuances, long and short-term lines of credit, risk-sharing agreements, guarantees, grants, technical assistance, co-financing arrangements, and export credit financing. Our resulting funding pool is a blend of the latter which serves to optimise deployment on the best terms possible to clients and beneficiaries, whether under our Trade and Development Banking SBU or TDF.
In the deployment of capital in the region, we collaborate with our partners to structure facilities with different tranches and instruments which comprise equity, quasi-equity, senior debt, subordinated debt, credit enhancement instruments, grants, technical assistance, and other.
ESG
As a multilateral development bank, ESG is streamlined across our operations and systems. As directed by our ESG framework which comprises policies and M&E systems aligned to global standards, E&S conditions and impact requirements are infused and tracked in our credit cycle processes, end-to-end, from deal origination through to the final loan repayment. We have been publishing sustainability reports on an annual basis for several years, and since last year, an integrated report developed in accordance with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) Integrated Reporting Framework which follow additional standards and guidelines – which among different stipulations, have sustainability-related disclosures requirements.
Digital tools
Backed by relevant ISO certifications, we have a world class enterprise-wide information technology system combined with applications across finance, treasury and administration, as well as loan and grant operations.
Among our different innovations in the digital space is the use of blockchain technology to execute trade finance transactions. In 2019, TDB became one of the first African development finance institutions to do a trade finance transaction using blockchain, and a year later, the first African financial institution to execute an intra-African one. To date, over US$2 billion in trade finance has been processed using blockchain technology, significantly accelerating transaction times, boosting efficiency, costs, transparency and traceability, as well as the carbon footprint of transactions.
5. Mauritius as a Strategic Hub: The importance of Mauritius for TDB Group’s regional operations and financial ecosystem.
A study commissioned by the Economic Development Board of Mauritius revealed that 9% of total African FDI stock and 4.2 million African jobs are supported by FDI mediated via Mauritius. While this data is from a 2021 study, it underscores the significant contribution the country makes to Africa’s economic development.
Mauritius stands out as a top African performer across key indices, renowned for its enabling legal and regulatory framework, business-friendly environment, and robust economic management. It is one of the few investment-grade-rated jurisdictions in Africa, and is internationally recognized for its sophisticated, transparent and well-regulated financial sector, its well-developed capital markets, and extensive network of double taxation and investment promotion and protection agreements. Likewise, its diversified network of preferential and free trade agreements with partner countries and supranational economic blocks, including the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which entered into force in April last year. Mauritius was chosen as the home of one of our principal offices due to many of the reasons I just mentioned.
Mauritius joined TDB Group in 1991 and became host to one of its principal offices in 2013. In the past few years, Mauritius also became home to the TDB Captive Insurance Company (TCI), alongside many of the Group’s asset management activities, including our TDB wholly owned fund managers, the ESATAL trade asset management company and the ESAIF infrastructure investment management company, as well as the flagship African trade fund ESATF.
Over the years, in addition to having financed several Mauritius-based clients in multiple sectors, we have welcomed Mauritian institutional investors in a number of our opportunities, and have been able to offer them competitive returns, capital appreciation and development impact.
From our base in Mauritius, we have also been able to crowd-in regional and global investors, and channel capital into the rest of the continent, namely via ESATF as mentioned. From a 2019 TDB seed investment of US$ 50 million, the fund has now grown to well over US$ 400 in asset under management, and over 70 investors. In addition to supporting several sectors as I referred to previously, it has been instrumental in driving financial inclusion thanks to its focus on SMEs, women, and smallholders. We will soon be rolling-out other funds and special purpose vehicles including a medium-term trade fund, funds focused on specific sectors like green housing and e-mobility, and others with specific geographical scopes.
6. Opportunities for Gulf/UAE Investors: Co-investment possibilities in infrastructure, renewable energy, logistics and sustainable trade.
There is a unique opportunity for Gulf countries and the UAE to deepen collaboration with Africa. Building on strong historical ties between both regions involving religion, trade, culture and migration, we have been witnessing a strong surge in both trade and investments between both regions, and in particular with the UAE. Flows have primarily targeted key sectors such as energy, infrastructure, logistics, mining, agriculture, and climate projects – aligning Gulf diversification strategies and competitive strengths with Africa's economic priorities and need for diversified capital sources.
The continent’s growing middle class and projected continued high levels of economic growth, supported by the acceleration of AfCFTA implementation – are expected to trigger a rise in both consumer and business spending, including, more and more, in rural areas. With the UAE in particular, there is considerable potential to build on the investments already deployed in green energy, mining, and those geared at bolstering interconnectivity infrastructure via ports, rail, special economic zones, and pipelines, as well as in telecommunications, digitalisation and AI specifically, which is set to see surging demand as a driver of business growth across all sectors.
There is scope to leverage the new CEPA with Mauritius and to work on further harmonising standards and removing non-tariff barriers between both regions to further catalyse investments on the continent.
I have already spoken about the ways we collaborate with our Gulf partners. In addition to elevating existing partnerships, we would be keen to welcome new GCC-based public and private institutional investors such as sovereign wealth funds, investment funds, foundations and philanthropic institutions, family offices, and others, into our Group’s equity and quasi-equity opportunities, and to partner with them to avail capital earmarked for development. Building on the success we have had mostly on commercial terms with several partners, and in addition to engaging in more triangular partnerships across regions, more risk-sharing, and more co-financing, there are multiple opportunities to amplify collaboration on concessional terms. TDB Group has both the track record and the institutional set-up to do this.
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