The Investment and Support fund for Business in Africa (FISEA), which is held by AFD and managed by Proparco, offers technical assistance services in addition to its investment activity.
The aim is to build the capacities and improve the performance1 of the companies (mainly SMEs) and financial institutions in which FISEA invests, either directly or indirectly, in Sub-Saharan Africa.
FISEA has a budget of EUR 5m to support African companies and contributes to financing:
- Technical assistance missions for (i) organizational diagnostics in companies and FIs to identify their weaknesses and propose areas for improvement, as well as (ii) targeted advisory support for a function or product;
- Assistance programs set up by investment funds for companies in their portfolio.
This assistance benefits a wide range of actors, including SMEs, in the sectors of health, the agro-industry, the production/distribution of consumer goods, banks, micro-insurance and microfinance institutions.
It concerns the management of the company – both the financial and social management – as well as information systems, technical operations, marketing, etc.
To date, the capacity building programs developed by partner investment funds have mobilized the bulk of the financing allocated by the FISEA technical assistance budget. Indeed, they provide support to companies which, due to their small size, could not benefit from direct support from AFD Group.
1 This notion of corporate “performance” covers the objectives of efficiency (production), effectiveness (productivity), viability (profitability) and relevance (economic, social and environmental impacts).