PIDG Pathfinder, new quarterly newsletter September 2019

I am delighted to introduce the new PIDG Pathfinder quarterly newsletter. The last few months have been productive for us with a number of projects reporting milestone achievements across our sectors in Africa and Asia. One highlight is EAIF’s arrangement of the long-term debt finance for a €305 million new port development in the Gabon Special Economic Zone. You can read more in our ‘Project round-up’. GuarantCo and TAF are collaborating with Jazz, Pakistan’s largest digital telecoms company, to co-finance an online sign language service to empower people with hearing impairments. Two new newsletter columns, ‘Talking point’ and Delivering impact will highlight aspects of the new PIDG five-year strategy. Ben Ogonji, Nairobi-based HSES Manager, has written a powerful feature on a fatal accident and subsequent lessons learned for a PIDG-financed project in Nigeria, and Alice Chapple, PIDG Director of Development Impact, has written about and how we can respond to the challenges of climate change. Finally, I have been fortunate to contribute to a number of interesting speaking forums, including the Japan Africa Business panel at TICAD7 where we discussed how Japanese businesses can collaborate with foreign companies in Africa as a route to growth; and the annual Swiss-Africa Business day in Zug, where the theme was Overcoming the Infrastructure Gap in Africa. If you have any comments or suggestions for this newsletter, please let us know.

You can read the full newsletter here

Philippe Valahu, CEO

The sign language interpreter is Ms Mamoona Awan (L-R) Mr Abdul Qadeer, Mr Ali Shabbar (CEO of DeafTawk) and Mr Wamiq Hasan, sharing the story of how they started this initiative.