(The following remarks were delivered by Elizabeth L. Littlefield, president and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, to CCA’s Annual Membership Meeting on February 23, 2011)

Good afternoon, it is a pleasure to be here with all of you – old friends and new. And thank you Haskell [n.b., CCA Vice Chairman Haskell Ward] for that warm introduction and for having me here today. 

OPIC’s work in Africa has benefitted from a long and fruitful partnership with CCA – your U.S.-Africa Business Summit has, in fact, served as the venue for announcements of some of OPIC’s most important projects, like the 100-megawatt power plant in Togo or a rail and port rehabilitation in Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. But our connections go deeper and longer back than mere money: Mimi Alemayehou, OPIC’s executive vice president, was CCA Employee Number Three in 1993 when CCA had only seven members. We can only hope that she will oversee the same growth and success at OPIC that she saw at CCA.

Ever since stepping off the plane in steaming Bamako in January 1986 to spend a month working with a very wobbly MFI, I have known that this was my continent, certainly in this life and probably in past and future lives, too.  Like many of you in this room, I have had the honor of working and living on and off in Africa for the past 20+ years in countries ranging from Gambia to Rwanda and Morocco to Botswana and South Africa.  Some of the most inventive companies and creative entrepreneurs I have had the privilege of working with at JP Morgan, the World Bank or OPIC have been African  -- like Safaricom and MPesa, Equity bank, Seaboard and hopefully soon, SEACOM.

So I am very pleased to be at OPIC now where the potential is so great to work with companies like all of you to accelerate the acceleration going on in African markets. OPIC was first described to me as the best kept secret in government. OPIC’s mission is to support sustainable development in emerging markets through catalyzing private capital investment, especially U.S. capital. So we get to do good things in developing countries, help U.S. business, project the right kind of U.S. values abroad and make money all at the same time. That’s why OPIC is an amazingly powerful little organization. Our tools are all kinds of structured or plain financing, risk-mitigating instruments like political risk insurance, and equity investment funds. Our priorities in Africa are three- helping to build out renewable energy and other more efficient renewable resource utilization, building out infrastructure, especially infrastructure for agriculture, and expanding access to finance by small and medium enterprises. Since 1974, OPIC has invested nearly $6.3 billion in 420 projects in Africa.  And we want to do more – much more.

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Since the time I first set foot in Bamako, there has been a quiet revolution going on in many parts of Africa.   Today we are all focused on the spectacular political revolutions going on in the north of Africa. But, over the past two decades, far less spectacularly and telegenically, nations as diverse as Rwanda, Botswana, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ghana have freed-up their economies, pushed ahead with market reforms, and adopted pro-business policies or, more usually, gotten rid of processes and policies that frustrated business, like focusing on the time it takes to license a new company.

The result of this reform, combined with better political and economic stability, is that most of Africa’s largest economies have been expanding and steaming ahead since 2000 at a steady and accelerating rate just like the old Mombasa steam engine trains.  And contrary to common wisdom, that growth is not just about exploiting Africa’s bountiful natural resources, it’s about her brains and talent too.  According to McKinsey, the financial sector, retail, agriculture, telecom and transportation all contributed to the rapid growth– natural resources were only one-quarter of it.  All of this has meant a steady growth in foreign capital flowing into the continent.  One of the brightest, shiniest little known facts I know is that investment into Africa has offered the highest returns of any emerging market for the past 10 or so years.

Here in the U.S., President Obama too has a strong interest in Africa and has prioritized Africa among our top foreign policy concerns. The president’s visit to Ghana in July 2009 was the earliest visit made by a U.S. president to the continent and it underscored Africa’s importance to the U.S.  At the State of the Union speech in January 2011, the president spoke about winning the future. OPIC is committed to working with our African partners and U.S. businesses to do just that in a broad, sustained and meaningful way.

So what can OPIC do to help?  As I mentioned, our focus in Africa, centers on three key areas: 1) Renewable energy and other renewable resources; 2) infrastructure, especially for agriculture; and 3) credit for small and medium enterprises.  Today OPIC’s exposure in Africa totals nearly $3 billion across 109 projects.  Some examples of current projects in these four priority areas include:

·        $200 million for a desalination project in Algeria that will supply urgently-needed potable water to 25 percent of Algiers’ population – a city half of the city receives water only one out of every three days.  

·        Several waste management, geo-thermal and other renewable resource projects

·        $110 million in financing and insurance for food production, food processing and water management in Rwanda, including expansion of tea processing facilities. 

·        $19 million in financing for microfinance in Kenya

·        $41 million in financing and insurance for the construction of housing units in Gabon, Tanzania, South Africa

·        $58 million in financing and insurance for the construction, renovation and expansion of primary and secondary schools in Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, and Zambia. 

So, here in 2011 we are in a pivotal year for Africa. Elections are scheduled in more than 20 countries across the continent which will make it a defining year, especially in light of the events across North Africa these past weeks.

Looking ahead beyond 2011, I see many reasons for optimism, and please note these are my own personal views and do not reflect that of the U.S. government or anyone else: Four good forces:

·        Political revolutions cascading across North Africa like rolling thunder will unsettle markets for a while.  I posit that they will make continent stronger in long run.

·        Rise of African urban consumer will continue to fuel growth -  the number of African households with discretionary income will rise 50% over the next decade - -  one has only to look at the incredible rise of the cell phone subscribers in Africa to think of what that means for investors in the real sector.

·        Strength of Africa diaspora, who are reversing the brain drain, bringing home both financial and human capital. This is perhaps the single most powerful force and in large part gives rise to the fourth..

·        Lastly, investors will begin to believe that the high rates of return are real and sustainable in the near term.. As Antoine de Agtmael, author of EM Century, says, the ongoing financial crisis has finally hammered into people’s heads the fact that things were a lot worse in the west and a lot better in EM , especially Africa. With relatively low rates of inflation and debt this is likely to remain true for a while

So, OPIC is bullish on Africa and eager to partner with the right kind of businesses and investors that will help advance sustained economic development and growth, especially growth that benefits her citizens most.

I welcome your thoughts and ideas and I thank you for your valuable time.  (For more information on OPIC, visit www.opic.gov)