This Wednesday, May 2, 2018, a high-level meeting was held at the Tiama Hotel in Abidjan, organized by the Fonds Africain de Garantie et de Coopération Economique (FAGACE) in the presence of key Ivorian financial players around the theme “FAGACE 2.0, a strategy built around banks and SFDs”.
FAGACE is one of Africa’s pioneering bank credit guarantee institutions. Through its diverse interventions, the Fund has contributed over 40 years to financing development projects in strategic sectors of the economies of its fourteen (14) member states for more than FCFA 1,500 billion.
Since 2017, the Fund has embarked, under the impetus of its Managing Director, Madame Minafou Fanta COULIBALY, on a new era of transformations to be more in line with developments in the financial market and the expectations of African small and medium-sized enterprises.
In this context, the new 2017-2020 Strategic Plan presented by FAGACE is based on :
- the refocusing of the institution’s activities exclusively on its core guarantee business;
- focus on SMEs and SMIs;
- the introduction of a new organization focused on risk analysis and management;
- the adoption of a prudential framework in line with international standards;
- strengthening the institution’s equity capital ;
- exclusive product distribution through banks and microfinance institutions;
- the Fund’s commitment to settle all guarantee calls under the required conditions.
All these measures are a strong signal to our partner institutions of a new and fruitful cooperation.
With banks now at the heart of the new strategy’s product distribution system, FAGACE’s Managing Director also reminded the meeting that “lending banks need institutional guarantors such as FAGACE to mitigate the risk of default by project promoters. Similarly, guarantors need banks to fulfill their mission of facilitating the mobilization of financial resources”.
Through this meeting, the Fund aims to boost SME financing in Côte d’Ivoire to support the country’s inclusive growth.
To date, 51 development projects in Côte d’Ivoire have benefited from the Fund’s guarantee, in priority sectors such as agriculture, industry and energy, for a total amount of 174.904 billion CFA francs.
