Kenya and Cameroon court investors at ATIDI's AGM

At the Annual General Meetings of the African Trade and Investment Development Insurance (ATIDI) in Nairobi, senior officials from Kenya and Cameroon showcased investment opportunities in their economies and outlined key policy measures before an audience of bankers, investors, and private‑sector leaders from across Africa and beyond. Kenya’s push to diversify public funding sources Raphael Otieno, director‑general of Kenya’s public debt management office at the national treasury, outlined the country’s plans for the commercial debt markets in the current fiscal year. He said Kenya had diversified its external funding sources by issuing Samurai bonds in Japan last year and would return to the Japanese market in the 2026/27 fiscal year. “Japan is a good source of funding. We find the cost of financing from the Japanese market to be very reasonable,” Otieno said. He revealed that Kenya is also considering other instruments, including panda bonds in the Chinese inter-bank market, sustainability linked loans, and debt swaps to help fund health and education. Eurobonds, he emphasised, would continue being a strategic source of external financing for Kenya. “Depending on the situation in the market we could consider a eurobond. But this will largely be for liability management.” ATIDI’s role in de-risking projects Kefa Seda, director‑general of the Public‑Private Partnership Directorate at Kenya’s national treasury, said the government had identified energy, water, agriculture and irrigation, and transport as priority sectors for private investment. He underscored ATIDI’s pivotal role in de-risking transformative projects across Kenya. He noted that several projects have already benefited from ATIDI’s credit‑enhancement facilities, including the 35‑megawatt Globeleq Menengai Geothermal Project, which received a Liquidity Payment Guarantee through ATIDI’s Regional Liquidity Support Facility to cover delayed payments by Kenya Power. Discussions are also underway to extend a similar guarantee to the KETRACO-Africa50-PowerGrid Transmission PPP to mitigate payment delays by the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company. Independent power producers have likewise tapped ATIDI’s risk‑mitigation instruments. The 310‑megawatt Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, for example, is covered by political risk insurance, while the 100‑megawatt Kipeto Wind Power Project benefits from a Liquidity Payment Guarantee protecting against delayed payments by Kenya Power. Seda said these interventions illustrate how ATIDI’s guarantees are helping unlock private investment in critical sectors, including the energy transition. Overall, Kenya’s PPP project pipeline consists of 51 active projects, 10 of which have already gone through feasibility studies and are currently in different stages of implementation. The projects, cumulatively valued at more than Sh 1.1 trillion ($8.5bn) span roads and transport, energy and power, housing, health, water and sanitation, agriculture, urban development, and telecoms and ICT. Cameroon touts strong macroeconomic fundamentals Moh Sylvester, director‑general of the treasury, financial and monetary cooperation at Cameroon’s Ministry of Finance, said the country’s economic outlook is improving, with growth reaching 4.6% last year and inflation remaining manageable at 3%. This growth is being increasingly driven by the non‑oil sector. “Considering oil accounts for 20% of national revenue, this is a sign of deepening economic diversification,” he noted. “The economy is diversified thanks to an import substitution strategy to stimulate local production,” he added Sylvester emphasised that Cameroon enjoys greater fiscal flexibility than most nations due to its manageable debt levels, describing the country as “among the 10 least indebted in the world, with our debt at 42% of GDP.” However, Sylvester acknowledged that the country faces short‑term refinancing pressures. “The real problem we have is high maturities between 2026 and 2030. This concentration of maturities in a space of just a few years gives the impression that the country is overburdened with debt,” he said. “We just need to push forward some of the maturities. We are working with investors to see how we can work around this,” he noted.