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With almost 10,500 beds spread over 9 campuses, Respublica group is one of South Africa’s leading student accommodation providers. Its residences are renowned for the quality of their buildings, their affordability and the range of additional services provided through the dedicated Res Life Program.

Calgro M3 is a group specialising in building affordable housing in South Africa. It is also the country’s first private developer to design and build “integrated real estate projects” comprising residential units in all price ranges within the “low-income” sector, as well as integrated social amenities (including public gardens, crèches, schools and shops). In 2017, Proparco granted Calgro M3 Developments a local currency loan equivalent to €25 million, which subsequently enabled the construction of almost 3,000 units of affordable housing benefiting nearly 6,000 people.

Christel Bourbon-Séclet, Director City Finance Programme at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, and Frédéric Audras, Head of the Urban Development, Planning and Housing Division at the Agence française de développement (AFD), present the 40th edition of the Private Sector & Development magazine ''Sustainable cities: How private sector players are gearing up''.

By 2050, almost 70% of the population of developing countries will be living in cities. Deploying sustainable urban infrastructure and services is a massive challenge. This new issue of Private Sector & Development presents several examples of how sustainable urban projects are designed and rolled out.

Watch the intervention of Françoise Lombard, Chief Executive Officer of Proparco, on the opening day of Paris INFRAWEEK 2023, at the plenary session " Unlocking Private-sector Financing in Emerging Countries Infrastructure" of Octobre 9 2023.

UNLOCK is Proparco’s innovative guarantee scheme offered to financial institutions to jointly cover the risk on long-term financing in local currency for key development projects.

Over two billion people throughout the world are currently living in countries in which development is being stymied by situations that are rife with conflict and violence. Moreover, the future provides no great grounds for optimism: the proportion of regions characterised by extreme poverty – fertile ground for situations of violence – is forecast to leap from 17% at present, to almost 50% by 2030.

"African Ports : gateway to Development" : Issue no. 26 of Private Sector & Development focuses on the African port sector. The magazine features analyses provided by experts to get an insight into this rapidly growing sector that is so vital for the Continent’s future growth and development. PS&D magazine tackles issues such as establishing good links to the hinterland – one of the key factors driving growth and breaking down barriers in Africa – freight, public-private partnerships (PPP), “green ports” and modernising ports by developing containerisation facilities.

Between 2007 and 2017, a staggering USD 50 billion were invested in the African port sector. With growth of 7% a year in maritime traffic of all types and a four-fold increase in maritime trade, driven in particular by Asia, Africa is the focus of renewed interest.

In the slum areas of Kenya’s capital, indoor flush toilets are a rarity. Most people have to make do with plastic bags and outdoor pit latrines. To remedy the situation, a company called Sanergy has built up a network of low-cost pay toilets that are put to optimal use, given that the organic waste is converted into fertilizer and sold to farmers.

Air transport in Africa still does not count for much on a global scale. However, strong GDP growth, the continent’s fast-growing urbanisation and the expansion of the middle classes – who want to travel – are likely to shake up this situation. The African aviation market is about to experience unprecedented growth. The IATA is forecasting an average annual increase of 5.7% in air traffic until 2034. The sector also offers major investment opportunities – estimated at over $160 billion for the acquisition of new aircraft alone.

Decent, affordable housing is crucial to development. It determines living standards; its location affects employment opportunities, while its mass construction can generate thousands of jobs. In most poor countries, however, both public policies and commercial organizations have largely mimicked the processes of highincome countries, catering only for their elites. This has led to ordinary people being marginalized, with millions condemned to self-built structures in informal settlements.

Open dumping of waste presents a real threat to the environment and to human health and is commonplace in developing countries. Constrained by budget pressures, towns and cities in the southern hemisphere are struggling to deal with the proliferation of municipal solid waste. Global production has practically doubled over the past ten years and is expected to reach 2.5 billion tonnes per year in 2025 as a result of the combined effect of urban development and changes in consumption patterns.

Forests are important carbon sinks that play a vital role in maintaining the world’s ecological balances. However, population growth and urbanisation are intensifying pressure on forested land in the southern hemisphere. The combined effects of agricultural development and overexploitation of fuel wood are causing nearly 13 million hectares of forest to disappear every year, particularly in the forest basins of the Amazon, Central Africa and Indonesia.

As the 21st century gets underway, development institutions are facing a major moral dilemma. Should they be supporting a cement sector that produces such significant amounts of CO2 when their core mission is to combat climate change? It is a question that is troubling the development world, yet it must be asked - and debated. It is this tricky problem that is the focus of this tenth issue of Private Sector & Development.

“Without the railroad, the Congo is not worth a penny”, declared the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley at the end of the 19th century. More than a century later this quote still resonates with the Africa of today. The continent is experiencing strong growth and the role of the rail sector is greater than ever before. Offering a lower cost alternative to roads, rail networks are also longer lasting and produce a lower carbon footprint.

Often considered as being on the sidelines of globalization, Africa has during the 2000s benefited from continuously increasing investment and become a fully-fledged player as a result of the boom in the mining sector. Growth in demand for mineral resources coming from emerging countries has transformed Africa, which previously received little attention from the investment community, into an El Dorado for small and major mining companies in Europe, North America, and of course, China.

In most South countries, the mobile phone sector has developed – under the impetus and supervision of public regulatory authorities – via the private sector. A considerable number of developing countries have seen a remarkably rapid establishment of mobile phone networks; for example, over the past four years Africa has recorded an average annual growth rate in the number of subscribers of over 40%.

We have decided to devote this second issue of Private Sector and Development – a bimonthly magazine that compares the opinions of Proparco’s community of investors with those of academic experts and members of civil society – to the role of the private sector in improving access to drinking water and sanitation in developing countries.