Development Finance Institutions (DFI’s) under the Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC) and Basotho Enterprise Development Corporation (BEDCO) in Lesotho hosted the SADC-DFIs network meetings in Maseru on Thursday.
This event was held under the theme “Development Finance Institutions and Regional Cross-Border Investment; Experiences and Challenges”.
When officially opening the event, the Minister of Trade, Industry and Business Development, Mr. Mokhethi Shelile said through the technical and capacity building support, this platform will be a center of excellence for development finance solutions.
He said the event should be used as a platform to find solutions to stimulate cross-border investments while also learning from each other how well cross-border investments can be handled towards their sustainability.
On the other hand, the Chairperson of the SADC DFI Network, Mr. Francis Macheka said the SADC region faced challenges such as drought due to the EL Niño which has become a threat to food security and challenging the financial capabilities of investments.
He noted that issues surrounding finance remain a challenge in most SADC region member states and that also challenge the growth of investment projects.
Also speaking, the BEDCO Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr. Tšepang Tlali said the objective of the forum is to share experiences and assess to what extent DFIs are collaborating on investments in the region, assess challenges, including policy, regulatory and institutional related challenges which they face as well as generating proposals to mitigate them.
He noted that the forum also provides a platform for DFIs such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDCSA) that have cross-border mandates, saying DFIs that do not but have the capacity to partner with them in projects to share experiences.
He added that the forum represents a dip-stick assessment of the DFIs involvement in financing projects in the region and the extent of collaboration amongst themselves as intended under the Finance and Investment Projects (FIP).
Besides DFI CEOs and senior executives, the forum was attended by senior officials of regional and international DFIs, resource mobilization specialists and government officials among other development stakeholders.
Source: LENA 07/12/2023
