Farai Mabeza
The UK’s development finance institution and impact investor, British International Investment (BII), is preparing to announce three new investments in Zimbabwe, in what it says is a sign of growing confidence in the country.
BII Regional Director Dirk Holshausen made the announcement at a joint United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) stakeholder forum on impact investment held in Harare last Friday.
“I’m really excited about what we see in the country at the moment,” Holshausen said, pointing to what he described as greater consistency in Zimbabwe over the past few years.
BII already has an investment in Zimbabwe through NMB Bank, which Holshausen said was made about 18 months ago to support lending into the agricultural sector.
“That was a great test case for us to see how we could move money back into Zimbabwe,” he said.
The experience has encouraged BII to pursue further opportunities, with three investments now lined up for announcement in the coming weeks.
“We actually have three investments that we’re going to be able to announce in the next couple of weeks into Zimbabwe, including into the real economy, which I can’t talk about today, but we’ll announce them soon,” Holshausen said.
He did not disclose the sectors or companies involved, but said BII was particularly interested in working with Zimbabwean institutions to unlock capital for productive investment.
That includes pension funds, insurance companies and banks, which he said control significant pools of domestic capital that could be directed towards businesses and job creation.
“We’re very interested in working with local partners,” Holshausen said.
ZIDA’s Chief Investment Promotion Officer Silibaziso Chizwina said Zimbabwe had opportunities across renewable energy, agriculture, agro-processing, healthcare, education, manufacturing, infrastructure and financial inclusion.
But converting those opportunities into investments would require “strong partnerships, credible data, bankable projects and an enabling regulatory environment”.
BII is the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor, investing across Africa, Asia, the Indo-Pacific and the Caribbean.
