Leaders of the Group of 7(G7) countries held a meeting with Italian and United States private sector representatives resulting in a $420-million-dollar investment commitment towards African countries.
This was disclosed in a statement published on Thursday, on the website of the government of Italy, the current host of the ongoing 50th G7 summit.
Tagged “G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment Side Event Co-Chair Statement”, the statement revealed the G7 co-chairs welcomed the commitments of $100 million and $320 million by partners, aimed at meeting the infrastructure and development needs of Africa through private sector engagement.
Global Infrastructure Investment
Nigeria is strategically positioned to benefit from the commitments made at the G7 summit.
The G7 is an informal association of seven of the world’s advanced economies(Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union), most of whom were Nigeria’s biggest trading partners in Q1, 2024.
According to data from NBS and Naralytics, France, US, Canada, and Italy were Nigeria’s top ten export trading partners in Q1, 2024.
These G7 leaders agreed to support flagship projects to develop transformative economic corridors for quality infrastructure and investments, touching Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
It stated that a coalition of U.S. investors highlighted and committed new billions of dollars in private investment in scaled infrastructure in emerging markets as a way of supporting the G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) topline goal of mobilizing $600 billion in infrastructure investment in emerging economies.
The statement partly reads,
“Today, Italy joined U.S. and EU efforts to promote sustainable development along the Lobito Corridor – committing to strengthen collaboration and mobilize an additional aggregate contribution of up to $320 million in investment in support of the core rail infrastructure and of the related side projects, with a view to additionally creating synergies with AGIA (Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa).
“The Co-chairs welcomed the Africa Green Industrialization Initiative (AGII) as a key platform for collaboration on infrastructure investment in Africa and celebrated the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) commitment of up to $100 million in philanthropic catalytic investment capital to unlock an additional $1 billion in private finance.”
The AGIA, led by the African Development Bank (AfDB), African Union Commission (AUC), is a platform that seeks to generate, finance, and execute projects with the private sector, and to catalyze up to $10 billion green infrastructure opportunities for private sector investment.
G7’s Collaboration with AfDB
In the context of the current engagement, the G7 revealed that the Italian Private Sector(through the Mattei Plan for Africa) launched new financial instruments in collaboration with the African Development Bank(AfDb), open to international partners’ contributions.
The Co-chairs of G7 welcomed Italy’s renewed commitment to boost development in Africa including by deepening partnerships with African Nations.
They stressed their commitment to increase coordination in that line so as to maximize collective impact by developing transformative economic corridors in Africa.
“The meeting confirmed the commitment to launching and scaling investments around PGII economic corridors globally, including corridors in Asia, Africa, and one connecting Europe to Asia through the Middle East, noting appreciation for the wide range of current and future investment by private companies in strategic sectors, such as finance for green energy and digitalization,” the statement partly reads.
With France, the United States, Canada, Nigeria is well positioned to benefit from their financial commitments to Africa.
For instance, from 2022 to 2024, Nigeria was Canada’s largest bilateral merchandise trading partner in Africa.
