Agence Française de Développement (AFD)

Rémy Rioux is the CEO of AFD Group and sets strategic direction. Sovereign lending decisions are made by internal credit committees following French government policy alignment. Proparco, the private-sector arm led by Françoise Lombard, operates its own investment team and makes independent equity, debt, and fund commitments to private companies and financial institutions.

AFD's pipeline originates from its dense network of 85 regional agencies, French embassy collaborations, and direct government-to-government requests. The pipeline often precedes private-sector DFIs because AFD blends technical assistance grants from Expertise France alongside early-stage project preparation — effectively underwriting the feasibility studies that later draw IFC or private infrastructure investors.

AFD operates across the full structure spectrum. Sovereign loans and budget support account for the largest volume. Proparco actively commits to private-equity and private-debt funds — Amethis, AfricInvest, and SPE Capital are portfolio examples — while also writing direct equity checks into financial institutions and infrastructure project companies.

AFD is the parent entity and holds the banking license. Proparco functions as a wholly owned subsidiary focused entirely on private-sector financing with its own CEO and investment committee. Expertise France, also fully owned, handles grants and technical assistance tied to AFD-financed projects. The three share country offices and origination personnel but maintain separate balance sheets and credit processes.

No. AFD has a commercial banking license and is one of Europe's most consistent green-bond issuers, raising billions annually on public markets. French State appropriations, multilateral trust funds, and retained earnings supplement market borrowings. This blended-liability structure gives AFD deployment capacity well beyond what the French budget alone would support.

AFD's mandate targets climate adaptation, biodiversity, energy transition, education, healthcare, and financial inclusion. It is explicitly prohibited from financing coal-fired power and has tightened restrictions on fossil-fuel exploration. The nuclear energy exclusion was reversed in 2023, allowing Proparco to consider nuclear-supporting infrastructure under certain conditions.

Proparco actively co-invests alongside commercial GPs in private-equity and infrastructure transactions, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia. Its standard approach is minority equity or subordinated debt with pari-passu terms. Proparco frequently anchors first-time fund managers and development-impact vehicles that later attract DFI and private institutional co-investors.