What is IFCs role in Africas private education sector?
Over the past decade, IFC has become increasingly involved in Africa’s education sector through the provision of long term financing for start-up and expansion initiatives in primary, secondary, vocational, technical, and tertiary education. In the past, IFC’s focus was to make direct investments, mainly at the primary and secondary levels. To more effectively meet the demands of the sector, IFC currently engages financial institutions on a wholesale basis, to expand their portfolio of lending to private schools and provide students with solutions to finance their education. We do this through debt and risk sharing investments with financial institutions. We work with partners who have the ability to apply best practice and leverage our partnership to support the sector, thereby promoting the growth of efficient and effective institutions. In addition, we provide advisory services to our partner banks to strengthen their capacity to lend to the education sector and to private school bo
