Boris Martor, partner and founder of Bird & Bird Africa, based in Paris, has recently co-authored a book with Ousmane Diawara, senior manager at EY. Project Financing in Africa, published by Lextenso, is a book based on Martor and Diawara’s decades of expertise in the financing of projects across Africa.
Project Financing in Africa serves as an instructive manual, a theoretical, practical, and operational toolbox, which speaks directly to practitioners, lawyers, bankers, developers, academics, students, and international and African civil servants alike.
Project Financing in Africa, the first book written in French dedicated to African-specific project financing, aims to address the infrastructural uncertainties that are present on the African continent, by functioning as a reference to support and supplement the work of stakeholders involved in the financing of projects in Africa. The book seeks to provide viable financing solutions to the States’ limited investment capacities, by highlighting the benefits of the private sector’s involvement in the project finance market. Project financing requires the collaboration of many developers, industrialists, investors and financial institutions within the public sector. Given Africa’s challenges and particularities, this book outlines the specific requirements for financing projects in Africa.
Prefaced by Panthéon-Assas University’s President Stéphane Braconnier, the first part of the book details issues and challenges relating to the structuring of project financing in Africa. It highlights project prerequisites, concerned sectors, actors, structuring stages and various project stages. In the second part, the book details the actors, their respective roles, bankability principles and financing contracts associated with project financing, as well as outlining the importance of the financial model in this process. Finally, in its third part, Martor describes how infrastructure projects in project financing are executed, once financed, and monitored in their completion. The final part of the book also covers matters of conflict management and project refinancing. Appendices illustrating the authors' statements are provided to help supplement the various concepts discussed.
Boris Martor, partner and co-founder of Bird & Bird Africa, says: "Signing the first book focusing on project financing in Africa in French, a sector I have been working in for more than 20 years, is the result of several years of work and research. Publishing this book is important to me because it aims to help anyone setting-up projects in Africa. Infrastructural development in Africa is an imperative and will provide significant leverage for economic and social development.”
