Digital Press Briefing with Jim Kelly, DFC Vice President for Global Business Development, on DFC’s Role at the Africa Tech Festival

MODERATOR: Good afternoon and welcome, journalists, from across Africa to the U.S. Department of State's Africa Regional Media Hub. My name is Phillip Assis and I am the director of the hub. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Mr. Jim Kelly, who is the global head of development - of business development at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation or DFC.

He will be speaking today about DFC's role in the African Tech Festival, which is taking place next week in Cape Town as well as DFC's commitment to identifying investment opportunities throughout the African continent that benefit all communities. That includes the recently approved West Indian Ocean Cable Company digital infrastructure deal, which is DFC's largest equity investment to date.

Today's briefing is on the record, and you may cite our guest by his name and title. We will begin today's briefing with opening remarks by Mr. Jim Kelly and then we will turn to your questions. Please be aware that we have already received many questions more than we have time to answer, but we'll get to as many as we can in the time we have.

With that, I am pleased to turn the floor over Mr. Jim Kelly.

MR KELLY: Thanks, Phillip, I appreciate it very much. And thank you to the U.S. State Department for convening today's call. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with all of you about DFC's work across Africa.

And Phillip, I'll say I thank you in particular for using a picture that's quite a bit old and makes me look quite a bit younger than I am today. So -

MODERATOR: Still looking good.

MR KELLY: - it's good to be here.

Look, DFC, as the international investment arm of the U.S. Government, serves Americas - serves as Americas deal team and plays a central role in U.S. economic statecraft. At the end of 2025, DFC's mandate was reauthorized with expanded remit. We now have the ability to employ 205 billion over the next five years and a substantial - which is a substantial increase from the 60 billion we initially had when first established in 2019. We also have the ability to invest in a greater number of countries and with substantial amount of flexibility, basically being able to invest in all parts of the capital stack for the investments that we pursue. We work closely alongside the private sector to mobilize capital for investments that drive growth and resilience for our partners. And across Africa, DFC has more than 14.5 billion in investment commitments.

Today I'm pleased to discuss DFC's recent investment in the West India Ocean Cable Company, WIOCC, our largest equity commitment to date. This transaction reflects what we look for in every investment: advancing U.S. strategic priorities, delivering returns to American taxpayers, mobilizing private capital, and most importantly, generating lasting economic development in the countries and regions where we invest. WIOCC, as many of you may know, is a Pan-African digital infrastructure company operating across more than 30 African countries. Our investment will help grow its fiber networks, subsea cables, data center capacity across the continent. This will expand reliable connectivity for African businesses, entrepreneurs, and households and enable incremental local economic growth and expanded employment opportunities.

In addition to our - in addition, our investment will mobilize up to 400 million in private capital during its investment period. We're proud to invest alongside partners including Vision International Investment Company and the African Finance Corporation. WIOCC will build on DFC's long track record of prioritizing digital infrastructure, which underpins Africa's fast-growing digital economy. It also reflects the expanded mandate DFC received with our reauthorization in December of 2025, which allows us to deploy more capital, as I said, across all of our products - in this case, our largest equity commitment.

Next week several of my colleagues will be at Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, and we look forward to continuing the conversations with partners there.

With that, Phillip, I'll turn it back to you.

MODERATOR: Great, thank you. Thank you, Jim.

We will now turn to your questions. As I mentioned, we received many in advance, but if you'd like to ask a new question please use the question-and-answer tab, the Q&A tab, and include your name, outlet, and country with your question. And note that we only see your Zoom login from this end.

Our first question is from Mr. Herculano Bumba who comes from TV Livre in Angola. He asks: "The DFC describes its WIOCC investment as its largest equity investment to date. But European and Asian banks already operate on the ground, with local presence and faster financing. How will the DFC prevent its approval processes and compliance requirements from putting it at a competitive disadvantage, and what radical adjustments to its model, speed, and risk appetite are planned?"

MR KELLY: Okay, well thank you for that question. I think it's - I think it's an important one to make sure that we get the answer across appropriately. Maybe the first thing I'll say is we're not going to look to do anything radical in terms of changing our investment process. We will continue to be very disciplined in what we invest in. And this is fundamentally driven by the three core criteria, right, that we abide to. One is generating appropriate returns for U.S. taxpayers, given the risk of the investments that we're investing in. The second is advancing economic development. And the third is supporting the U.S. strategic interests abroad.

It's important - it's very important to note that we are not here to compete with private capital. Our role is to really complement what private capital can do and not to crowd out commercial investors. That's core - that's really core to our function.

So with that, I think we can provide a pretty distinctively different investment mentality as we go into this. One, I think that we've got a longer-term perspective than many private investors so we can provide more patient capital, and this is particularly true with any private equity firms in the U.S. And we also have the ability, with loans, to go out to 25 years, which is beyond what we see from most, if not all, commercial banks.

And then also I think we've got the ability to fill these financing gaps where commercial investors may lack the appetite for the risk. As I said, it can go up and down the capital stack from straight loan down to equity, but we also have other instruments which we can deploy.

So I think that's - I think that should answer the question, Phillip?

MODERATOR: Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, thank you.

MR KELLY: Maybe the one other thing to add with that is -

MODERATOR: Of course.

MR KELLY: - as we go through these investments we will - we do take time, right? We've done things to try to accelerate the process, and we'll continue to look at some more to be able to respond more quickly to opportunities and situations. But we're always going to go back to that - the key criteria that I mentioned in the beginning, and we're never going to sacrifice thorough due diligence and analysis as we go through, right, given that we're basically working for the U.S. taxpayer.

MODERATOR: Great, thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Mr. Benjamin Kavubu from Uganda, who simply asks: "When does construction on the Lobito Corridor start?"

MR KELLY: Thank you. It's a very - it's a very important project for us. I mean, the Lobito railway is operational today, right. And our capital and our commitment is to rehabilitate, right, that railway, and provide the capital improvement activities. Those activities are ongoing right now. We hope, with our investment, that it's going to really improve the capacity and the efficiency, and lower the cost. But that's - that's ongoing right now. In terms of when we'll be complete with our investments, I'm not sure of that at this point.

MODERATOR: Okay, fair enough. Great, thank you. Our third question also comes from Angola. The question is: "Many African markets" - I'm going to read this here - "Many African markets have serious institutional gaps: fragile regulatory frameworks, a shortage of technical talent, and shallow capital markets. How much of the DFC's investment is aimed at closing those gaps - such as through training, partnerships with local companies, institutions, guarantees, or technical assistance - rather than only financing infrastructure? And how will you ensure that local partners, including Angolan ones, in this case, take part as co-investors and not merely as beneficiaries?

MR KELLY: Yeah, thank you, because that's - that's actually a really good press question. So look, we take a wholistic approach to our support, particularly of the Lobito Corridor. And while we're going to support a lot of investments in the mining sector, we're also looking equally, if not more so, to look to invest in sectors outside of the mining space. Some examples of that include the health care sector, financial services, agriculture and agricultural supply chain. Those are kind of key areas of investment for us. And what we really try to do is we hope that the investments that we make will encourage further economic development.

Broadly speaking, when we look across all of our investments in Africa and otherwise, we're looking to build strong sustainable economic ecosystems. We want to structure the investments that really can kind of transform economies and the trajection of those economies. And we're going to do that in regions where we have strong strategic interest. Africa certainly is one of those areas.

Often it's through direct investments, like with WIOCC. But we also can do other things, right, in addition to just straight investments. We have a team that actually sits underneath me which does project development feasibility studies that can help get projects off the ground and get them to the point of bankability. And we also have a very active guarantee program that can support local partners in their own businesses and lending.

With respect to - I think the last part of the question was around training and technical assistance. It's important to note that DFC is really just one arm of the U.S. Government, right. We're the international investment arm. And we work in concert and very closely - honestly on a kind of day-to-day basis - with all the government agencies that are overseas. So I know in particular the Department of State has a number of tools to help address some of these non-investment engagements. But like I said, we'll be working very closely with State and others to try to make this a wholistically advantageous investment program.

MODERATOR: Great, thank you. The next question actually we've had several questions along these lines, so this is basically a summary of those questions, which is: "What are DFC's top investment priorities in Africa and how do those align with the priorities of African governments and businesses?"

MR KELLY: Yeah. So look - and again, I'm going to repeat myself, but I think DFC looks to invest in a number of sectors that are very targeted. We're going to invest in those sectors across the continent, and we're looking for opportunities to deliver mutual benefits, both the United States as well as the local economies. We prioritize the opportunities that advance economic development as we go through our process; that's a very important component as we go through our various committees and the board to get approval. But we are also looking to support U.S. strategic interests. And as I said before, one of the core criteria is to generate the returns for U.S. taxpayers.

You have sectors where we focus; obviously, digital infrastructure, such as the WIOCC transaction, is very important to us. We're looking to deploy modern digital infrastructure into key areas to really secure - to develop secure internet networks and help unlock local economic potential and fundamentally narrow the digital divide, right, that exists certainly in Africa compared to some Western economies. I believe that my statistic's correct: Less than 40 percent of Africa's population use the internet, as of a year or two ago. And I think today it has less than 1 percent of the global data center capacity, despite having close to 20 percent of the world's population.

So WIOCC specifically connects the international networks - the fiber, the last mile broadband, to improve service across the region that will be secure and high quality. And as I said before, digital infrastructure fundamentally is going to be there, is going to help that technological connectivity. But it also drives growth and jobs, right, which I think is perfectly aligned with the priorities in Africa.

Other sectors include transportation logistics, as we talked about with Lobito rail - ports, rail, road. Agriculture and health care supply chains are very important to us, so we'll continue to look for opportunities there. And then obviously, critical minerals and energy will also be important.

MODERATOR: Great. That's exciting. Next question is: "How does DFC attract private investment to markets that investors may otherwise consider too risky? And how do you ensure its financing complements rather than replaces commercial capital?"

MR KELLY: Yeah, here again, like - just another good and important question, so thank you. So look, the way we were set up, particularly with the reauthorization that we got at the end of 2025 - excuse me - gives us a tremendous amount of flexibility, right. And that's in terms of how we invest. We have, under the leadership of Ben Black, also brought in a number of people who really have the expertise to be creative with those solutions.

So we look at an investment and when we speak with our private sector partners, we're looking to address the risk - the risks and the financing gaps that could otherwise prevent something from moving forward, right, that would not allow that project to be bankable. I think we've got distinctive tools. As I said, we can provide direct loans. Project finance is going to continue to be very important, but it goes all the way down that capital stack, right, to equity and the spots in between. We've looked at preferred transactions with warrants, we've looked at convertible bonds and actually executed convertible bonds. And that flexibility allows us to fill in where someone in the private sector may not.

In addition to direct investments, we can also provide other things such as political risk insurance, right. That has been a hallmark of the agency and continues to be very important. Guarantees, as I had mentioned before, we'll continue to do. On-lending, with local financial institutions, has been an important part of the agency. And then the project development services, right, that I talked about before around feasibility studies, to help get things - to help get things off the ground.

So fundamentally, it's just not a - it's not a one-size-fits-all investment process. It's really trying to figure out where those gaps are and to fill those gaps. WIOCC, I guess, in and of itself, is a good case of providing additionality, which is how we evaluate it. There's significant infrastructure financing deficit in Africa, and in part that's due to many of the African countries being high-risk jurisdictions. With DFC and, fundamentally, the U.S. Government's participation, I think this provides a lot of confidence and credibility in projects that we invest in. And for WIOCC specifically, our investment's going to bring up to, we estimate, 300 million in lending by third-party banks, which obviously is very significant.

MODERATOR: Yeah, yeah, indeed. Earlier on the question before, you mentioned critical minerals, and we've had a few questions about that. What role does DFC play in financing Africa's critical minerals sector? And how do you ensure those investments support local processing, job creation, and responsible resource development?

MR KELLY: Yeah. Yeah, so we look to really play kind of what I would say is a catalytic role in Africa's critical minerals sector. We do look to mobilize the private investment and are willing to do these project development work and studies to allow something to become commercially viable. But fundamentally, what we want to do is we want to strengthen the overall supply chains, right, and with that deliver the tangible benefits to the host countries where the projects exist.

It's - I think it's important to note, like, our focus is not simply to extract minerals. It's more along the lines of supporting a broader value chain that can create that lasting economic ecosystem, right, that I had mentioned before, which can have many tangential benefits but also a longer-term impact that can help economies continue to grow over a period of time.

MODERATOR: Great. It looks like we only have time for one more question. That question goes to Mr. Timothy - I'm not going to say your name correctly, I'm sorry - but from Nexus Media in Uganda: "What plans does DFC have for specific regions on the continent?" And he's asking specifically about the East African region, but of course you could speak about other regions as well.

MR KELLY: Yeah, so look, the reason that I was brought in by Ben - it's a new role at the DFC, and the group I'm building is in large part a new group. We've always had a team of people on the ground, but we're also looking to add a number of people in the States. And the reason for that is that we want to make sure that we're tapping into all the potential pools of capital that are out there, that are interested in investing in the likes of Africa, right? I don't want this to be a reactive agency; I want it to be a proactive agency. And there's a lot of people out there in the private sector who are very smart and very experienced and very knowledgeable about all these different international investment opportunities. And I want our team to work very closely with them to help identify things that maybe we don't necessarily see ourselves or that aren't known in the local countries, that a solution could potentially exist.

We operate fundamentally around seven key sectors. I had mentioned them before. Energy certainly is one. We do a lot in the energy space, particularly looking at things in the midstream area at this point in time. Critical minerals, I think, is probably the best known. Transportation logistics, right, as I said before, whether that be ports, rail, roads, or anything else, is also of utmost importance. Technology and telecom, getting the expertise of the U.S. technology ecosystem out into different parts of the world and having other countries have the ability to use that type of expertise is something that's - that we're very focused on. And then I think as I said before, kind of the health care and agricultural industries, particularly the supply chains, right, that are associated with those. And then also we have a focus on financial services. A lot of that lately has been around the digital banking system is - that's where the industry is evolving. But we've got a group focused on - I'm looking for opportunities in the financial services space.

And as I said, I'm not - I won't repeat it again, but we're up and down the capital stack with a number of other instruments that we can use to help facilitate getting things done. And honestly, we're wide open to new ideas and things that we can explore, right, either with the team in Africa or with my team here in the States.

MODERATOR: Yeah, that's a lot going on. That's great. That was our last question. But before we close out, I wanted to offer the - any final remarks or any words of wisdom from your end before we end.

MR KELLY: Yeah, I don't know if I have wisdom - (laughter) - but look, the African continent is - has been in the first version of DFC and continues to be critically important to us. I think the 14 billion of investments that we've done to date is an example of that. But it's not just what we've done in the past; it's what we want to look to do in the future. And, as I said, we've got a very rigorous investment process that we go through, and part of that is analyzing can this - is it a project that can work, and what type of investment are we going to make to help bring other private capital in. But at the core of it, it is creating those economic ecosystems that can flourish for a long period of time, and we're just here to be the catalyst. Sometimes that can be short term, but we're very willing to have it be longer term to make sure that it benefits not just the U.S. taxpayers, right, but more importantly, the local economies.

MODERATOR: Great. All right, that's good news.

All right, I'd like to thank Mr. Jim Kelly, the director - sorry - the global head of business development at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, for joining us today. Thank you for meeting with us and telling us about opportunities and investments in Africa. And thank you, journalists from across Africa, for joining us as well today. A recording and a transcript of today's press briefing will be sent to registered journalists of this call.

If you have any questions about today's call, please e-mail us at the hub. Our address is [email protected]. And if you publish any articles or broadcasts from this press briefing, please do share those as well, the link with us, at that same address, if you wouldn't mind. I'd also like to invite everyone to follow us on X if you're not already doing so. Our handle is @AF - or excuse me - @AfricaMediaHub. And for our French speakers, you can also follow us at @USAenFrancais.

Thank you all. Thank you again, Jim, and wish you all a pleasant day.

MR KELLY: Thanks for having me.

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