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The Africa Development Bank (AfDB) and Japan said today that they will provide $3 billion over three years to support private sector development in Africa. The funding will be provided equally, under the AfDB’s Enhanced Private Sector Assistance for Africa (EPSA) initiative and by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

The announcement was made during the ongoing 6th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), which is holding from 23rd to 28th in Nairobi, Kenya. This is the first time that TICAD will be held on the African continent since 1993.

“This is a significant expansion of our support to the private sector, which will play a critical role in Africa's economic transformation,” said Akinwumi Adesina, the President of the AfDB.

“The scaling up of the EPSA initiative will help increase access to electricity, boost the industrialization of the continent and improve the quality of millions of lives in Africa . . . We are proud to partner with Japan, one of our key strategic partners, in this endeavour.”

In addition to its private sector funding, Japan has also pledged to provide an extra $300 million for co-financing with the AfDB to help African countries access the best low emitting clean coal technologies available. Japan has so far provided about $1 billion of concessional loans to Africa under EPSA-1 (2005-2011) and is providing about $ 2 billion under the current EPSA-2 (2012-2016).

“AfDB and Japan have agreed today to upgrade the joint EPSA initiative, which has been at the core of our long-standing partnership, helping boost private sector-led growth in Africa,” said Taku Otsuka, Japan’s State Minister of Finance.

“We look forward to continued close collaboration with the AfDB so as to further accelerate the development of the African private sector, by delivering resilient and high-quality infrastructure and strengthening the health system,” he added.