A Broader View of Eximbank’s Activity and Achievements in Its Africa Portfolio

The undersigned are each members of the U.S. Export Import Bank Sub-Sahara Africa Advisory Committee (SAAC), an outside advisory body made up of professionals who in each instance have extensive experience in US/Africa in regards to trade, investment, development and development policy and or diplomacy relating to the African continent. (This letter expresses the opinions of the undersigned only, not the SAAC or US Export Import Bank.)

We are prompted to submit this Letter by an article that appeared in Bloomberg News on May 15 detailing the Eximbank Inspector General’s report which, among other findings, faults  current Eximbank leadership in regards to certain of the Bank’s Africa activities. Indeed, the undersigned have each now reviewed the IG’s May 10^th report regarding Exim performance in Africa and believe that, while certain of its conclusions and commentary are supportable, its conclusions do not provide a fulsome or particularly current picture of the work Eximbank is currently engaged in in Africa.

For instance, we note that the report covers the period FY 2014 through FY 2023 – a decade during which there were many years that Exim’s operations were severely impacted by certain authorizations and funding being withheld.  Exim’s statutory authority lapsed between July 1 and December 4, 2015, and from July 2015 to May 2019 a lack of quorum on Exim’s Board of Directors prevented the agency from authorizing transactions in excess of $10 million.   As a result, the total value of Exim’s annual authorizations declined by nearly 84 percent – from $20.5 billion in FY 2014 to $3.3 billion in FY 2018.   The normal pipeline of projects seeking financing for exports to sub-Saharan Africa was depleted and rebuilding that pipeline took some years to begin recovering once Exim’s authorization was restored in 2019. 

Upon assuming Chairmanship of Eximbank in February 2022, current Chair Reta Jo Lewis -- the first African American woman to serve in that role – pronounced her intention to make the Bank’s involvement in African trade and US/Africa economic partnership consequential. (For those of us with decades of interaction with Eximbank and with considerable experience in US/Africa trade issues, this factor is not inconsequential in any effort to engage in productive trade partnerships in Africa.)

We are not intending to second guess the Inspector General regarding the purposes for the report. However, we are of the opinion that if the IG Report was intended to create a productive outcome for the Bank’s Africa programs, that goal was not fully met. While we do not ascribe any particular motive to the OIG’s report, its tenor might create an erroneously negative impression of Exim’s current Africa initiatives. We believe it is important to augment the public record with facts relating to some historically important achievements in Africa of late by the Bank.

To begin with, for those of us with decades of interaction with Eximbank, we are immediately struck with the fact that Ms. Lewis is the first African American woman as Eximbank’s Chair, a factor which is not inconsequential towards engaging Africa’s trading partners. Moreover the Bank has on dozens of occasions of late, at home and internationally, publicly committed to greatly improving its coverage in Africa and to make its involvement in the US/Africa trade partnership reflective of the current importance of Africa to world commerce. We believe that the Bank, so far, is largely living up to those intentions, even as it acknowledges inherent and historic challenges.

As some examples of current forward leaning activities by the Bank in regards to its Africa portfolio, we wish to list just a few of the Bank’s current actions which highlight their focused and dedicated attention to US/African trade. Last month, in mid-April, the Bank hosted an exceptionally popular and well attended Global Business Development  Summit which highlighted the African diaspora and specifically focused on increasing—and financing—US/Africa trade. Africans from the public and private sector were there, as were their counterparts from the US and the Caribbean.

Moreover, Senior Leaders of Exim have seemed purposeful in trying to meet African leaders and African project sponsors where they are. The Chair and senior officials have traveled to the African continent 8 times so far and have met with and hosted over 60 African heads of state and senior ministers. Additionally—and importantly, given the endemic lack of financing available to wishing to trade with Africa—Exim has focused on forging new trade finance leveraging arrangements with African sovereigns and with Africa-focused financial institutions, including US banks and investment banks, Afreximbank, African Development Bank, African Finance Corporation, and the Bank of Industry in Nigeria.

Exim has been heralded worldwide for its historic $1.4 billion financing of solar energy and related infrastructure projects and, among other projects, financing of Ethiopian Airways asset acquisitions which were needed in order to sustain its leadership role among global carriers. In all, from where we each sit in regards to our work in Africa, Eximbank’s current activities on the continent have resulted in its most active presence in Africa and the African diaspora in its history.

 Our job as the SAAC committee is decidedly NOT to publicly defend Eximbank or its officials in any way. Far from it. We are instead asked to use our experiences in our support of and advice to Eximbank towards greater supportable Eximbank financing of US/Africa trade, done in a way that is both sustainable in the long run and designed to improve the lives of normal citizens on both continents. We believe that by ensuring that the record of Eximbank’s achievements in African trade is accurate and ensuring that policymakers and stakeholders know of the Bank’s earnest efforts, growth in the US Africa trade relationship can grow. That is our point in presenting the points in this letter.

Signed:

Jude Kearney, Managing Partner ASAFO & Co. US LLP

Florie Liser, President and CEO Corporate Council on Africa

Ambassador (Retired) Harry Thomas, Kissinger Fellow, Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs

Rev. Matthew Watley, Senior Pastor, Kingdom Fellowship AME Church

Mayor (Retired) Wellington Webb, President and Founder of Webb Group International.