Project Finance in Africa: Principles and Applications

Infrastructure drives economic growth and sustainable development by facilitating productivity, attracting foreign investment, promoting industrialization, reducing poverty, improving standards of living, and enhancing human development. Thus, the development of project-oriented frameworks/institutions that offer long-term infrastructure financing has been identified as a core and guaranteed way to maximize economic growth and development especially for developing regions like Africa. Project finance has a critical role in infrastructure development. This book examines the project finance ecosystem, methods, analysis, and key related risks. Its unique contribution to the literature is its focus on Africa, where there is a huge infrastructure investment deficit and the lack of the technical-know-how to bridge this gap. Following a detailed introduction to project finance, the book investigates project viability, project characteristics, risk analysis and management, structure and legal issues in the context of project finance, as well as project finance markets, banks and syndicated lending, financing the deal and the role of project advisors. It also offers insight into financial modelling and project evaluation, credit risk in project finance, from the lenders perspective, and the role of project finance in the petroleum industry. The book provides two African-related case studies of project finance. The book incorporates theoretical perspectives, valuable policy insights and resources, and offers strategies to improve and reform the structure and implementation of project finance in Africa. It provides scholarly and professionally engineered knowledge and while each chapter explains and discusses several related issues, the case studies offer a real-life learning and teaching experience for academics and students to enhance their understanding of the issues under discussion.