Upon the launch of AFD’s “Economic Outlook 2025,” Financial Afrik had an extensive conversation with Rémy Rioux, the head of AFD Group, which includes the public bank, its subsidiary Proparco for the private sector, and Expertise France. With its novel structure and new funding mixes, it achieved a record year in 2024 on the continent with 5.5 billion euros committed out of 13 billion globally. Key findings from the study include the resilience of African economies after the COVID shock, growth prospects of 4% in 2025 (identical to Asia), and a debt ratio that has doubled from 30% to 60% in 15 years.
You just published, for the sixth consecutive year, the AFD’s 2025 economic outlook for “All Africa”. Who or what are these projections for?
We need to pay much more attention to Africa and how it evolves. And seek to understand what we’re missing. After two lost decades in the debt crisis and the painful phase of structural adjustments, the continent has experienced two decades of growth that have undeniably allowed it to progress in many facets. But now, we must revisit this promise of Africa because things are not going exactly as planned since the beginning of the 2000s. Conflictuality has returned to Africa—I remember that at the time, it was said there was no terrorism in Africa!—The demographic transition remains unfinished in the heart of the continent, and labor productivity is still too low. We also thought that the rapid emergence of some African countries, then coupled with the massive investment from China, would have a more powerful effect. Conversely, we had not seen the potential of the nature economy, green hydrogen, renewable energies, the new rush for rare metals, which are new assets for Africa.
To better understand this, AFD and La Découverte editions have decided to publish a short book every year for the past six years to better grasp these evolutions and contribute to the debate in Africa, France, and Europe. Each year, readers find under the pen of our experts and African researchers, a summary chapter, a forward-looking calendar, key figures for the whole of Africa, and several thematic chapters. I would like to point out that this year there is an excellent chapter on artificial intelligence that notably raises the question of including African national languages in this new world. This book is the tip of the iceberg of the hundred research papers AFD publishes each year, many specifically dedicated to Africa, all available on our website. We have, for example, recently published a book with the World Bank on measuring inequalities on the continent. And another, very comprehensive text, on the minerals of the transition. Congratulations to the teams!
Given the generalized decrease in Official Development Assistance (ODA), not just in France, which has forced African states to resort to issuing Eurobonds since 2020, would you say that this aid has become unpopular today?
Unpopular is not the word. I would rather say misunderstood and often caricatured. Surveys on the opinion of the French population regarding international action say three simple things every year: one, we are massively aware of global issues—climate, inequalities, migrations, etc.—and their impact on our daily lives. Two, do something! Three, no one ever talks to us about it, so the lack of answers worries us. Logically, once the action of AFD, alongside its impacts, is known, it is very favorably judged.
In 2024, just before the European elections, we asked the same questions to Polish, Swedish, Italian, and German populations, who told us exactly the same thing. And we have just surveyed residents of four African countries—Senegal, Ivory Coast, DRC, and Kenya, in the capital and a major provincial city—. This last survey does not reveal a rejection of development aid either, even if the word “aid” is the least liked and if there is a strong expectation that these investments reach local communities and if the specter of corruption and poor management of funds is always very present. The action of France is recognized in these four countries, particularly that of the AFD, which also enjoys a good image here, when our agency is known.
This does not mean that we should not go much further in renewing development policy and move from a logic of aid to a logic of sustainable and inclusive investment, as President Emmanuel Macron has been defending for many years.
Nonetheless, public development aid is decreasing in volume, everywhere. What financial instruments do you have outside this area?
Public development aid has experienced a significant increase over the past decade, now exceeding $200 billion annually. But it is likely that we will see a reversal of this trend in 2025. One might think that in Europe, where a budget adjustment effort is necessary, this decrease will be cyclical, as has indeed been said in France by Prime Minister François Bayrou in his general policy speech. And never forget that the main financier of development is the European Union, far ahead of the United States. Across the Atlantic, one can be much more concerned, obviously, after the new administration’s offensive against USAID. As for China and other emerging countries, we can hope that they take more responsibility in the future, but this remains very uncertain.
Everywhere, I believe that we cannot dispense with a profound renewal of the narrative and instruments of development financing. By demonstrating that it is in the interest of the peoples to link their interests with the interests of other people, and to build mutual interests, we will then move away from the tenacious impression that development policy never benefits its own citizens.
And then, we must mobilize more private financing and direct it better, all over the planet. In the future, we need to finance what no one finances, of course, which presupposes public resources. But we also need to encourage private investments and structure financial markets, which are still far too limited in emerging and developing economies. This is indeed the logic of what was decided for the climate at the conclusion of COP29 in Baku, which distinguished two objectives to be achieved by 2035: 300 billion in funds, mainly public, for the most vulnerable, on the one hand, and 1,300 billion in private financial flows to decarbonize our value chains, on the other. This is the right, dual way to think, I believe.
Africa particularly suffers from a lack of private investment and too little risk-taking in financing its companies. Domestic financial markets must be strengthened to transform local savings into long-term investments for infrastructure and company capital. And we should not oppose public and private here: Africa also needs well-managed public development banks—there is already a hundred on the continent—who must play their role to compensate for market failures and invest in their structuring and animation.
How do you position AFD relative to other public institutions like Bpifrance?
When I was the chief of staff for Pierre Moscovici at Bercy, we created a new public development bank specialized in innovation and the promotion of entrepreneurship, Bpifrance. I am very proud of it, and this new institution quickly filled a gap. Its CEO, Nicolas Dufourcq, and his teams have done remarkable work. Very complementary to that of AFD and its subsidiary dedicated to business financing, Proparco, with a very simple division of tasks: Bpifrance’s clients are French, while Proparco’s are foreign. It is then up to us to connect them usefully. And we launched in 2024 in Abidjan a new program that associates AFD and Bpifrance, called Choose Africa 2, which aims to support the creation in Africa of support systems for entrepreneurs comparable to Bpifrance, effective and adapted to each context. With the reinforcement of the African Development Bank, we are already making progress in several countries, such as Ivory Coast, Benin, Senegal, and Togo. I remind you that I had carried an even more ambitious project, under the presidency of François Hollande, to structurally bring closer AFD and its big sister the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC), the great public bank of France where the development experience of our country has accumulated since 1816.
Is the AFD structure, public pole, and Proparco, private sector, still relevant today?
We have made many proposals, these past two years, for a more dynamic use of public resources, now under constraint, notably via Proparco. I believe that we must innovate and diversify even more our interventions in the future, as close as possible to the needs of our clients. This is the ambition of the new architecture of the AFD group, at the heart of our new strategy, with its three entities—AFD, Proparco, Expertise France—, unmatched in the world by the diversity of financial and non-financial instruments it has at its disposal. AFD addresses public and “non-profit” actors, governments but also public enterprises, local authorities, and civil society. Proparco finances the private sector. Expertise France provides technical support to strengthen the project management capabilities and a capacity for direct implementation, when necessary. I ask all our clients and partners to request innovative combinations of instruments, to develop particularly public-private partnerships (PPP). I also believe strongly in the development of carbon markets, where we should intervene in the future. We will also probably need to balance our economic model differently to be even more ambitious, beyond our 13 billion euros of annual financing today.
What investment sectors do you want to prioritize in Africa in the short/medium term?
First, I want to say that AFD Group had an excellent year in Africa in 2024, contrary to the doomsayers and all that can be read here and there about the relationship between Africa and France. Our relations must be renewed, clearly, and AFD wants to play a useful role here. But they are very much alive, as evidenced by our 5.5 billion euros of funded projects last year—4 billion for AFD, 1 billion for Proparco, and 500 million for Expertise France. With two records: the largest sovereign financing in the history of our agency in South Africa to support the country’s just transition policy in its social dimension, notably the conversion of mining sites in Mpumalanga. And the largest loan ever granted to a non-sovereign actor, in this case, the Office chérifien des phosphates (OCP) to accelerate the decarbonization of fertilizer production by prioritizing green hydrogen, as well as to support their African ambition. It’s exciting, including contributing to sustainable agricultural practices in France, by giving our farmers access to innovations born in Africa. The African continent today represents nearly 50% of the annual activity of the AFD group and we do not reason in sectoral terms, to be really attentive to the needs of our clients and in full respect of national sovereignties. I warmly thank all our friends on the continent for their trust, which honors and obliges us.
Could you tell me a bit more about your investments in sports, especially in Senegal where the first Youth Olympic Games will be held in 2026?
I met President Diomaye Faye last June during his visit to Paris. I naturally proposed a review of AFD’s portfolio, which is significant and diversified in Senegal, based on the new priorities of the country. This work, which also concerns our intervention instruments, is ongoing. But one thing is certain, sports will remain a catalyst for development in Senegal, as confirmed by the Senegalese president at the close of the Sport for Sustainable Development summit #Sport4SD that AFD organized with the IOC on July 25 last year, the day before the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympics, in the presence of more than 60 heads of state and government and the entire sports movement.
Since 2018, AFD has funded 200 sports projects for 200 million euros in 50 countries, mainly in Africa. We seek to demonstrate that investments in sports create economic and social value and should be taken seriously. In France, sports represent about 2% of GDP, while its share in Africa’s wealth is estimated at only 0.5%. The potential is enormous, and Senegal has a major role to play as it will be in this country that an Olympic event will be organized for the first time in Africa with the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar. AFD is actively contributing to this by renovating the Iba Mar Diop stadium and the egg-shaped pool in the Medina district. We are also preparing a report with the World Bank that we hope to publish before Dakar on the impact of sports on development. In the four African countries where we conducted the survey I mentioned earlier, respondents prioritize sports and cultural industries as a priority investment area.
In the “Economic Outlook 2025,” you show that the acceleration of conflicts is a source of non-development. At a time when France questions its presence in the Sahel, what are the new orientations of AFD in this region that has long mobilized it?
Several chapters of the book explore the complex links between geopolitics and development. Regarding the Sahel, we too often forget that it has been, for many years, one of Africa’s fastest-growing regions: +6.2% still expected in 2025, only slightly less than East Africa, the continent’s leader with +6.4%. Our publication invites us to take off our security glasses for a moment, as important as they are, to also consider economic dynamics. For some countries, like Senegal, Mali, or Niger, there is currently a significant resource effect, linked to the price of gold and hydrocarbons. For the time being, AFD has maintained its Greater Sahel Regional Directorate, based in Ouagadougou and covering an area stretching from Senegal to Chad. We no longer have new activities in the three central Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger),.
Given the covetousness and international rivalries that the continent is subject to, what is—in your opinion—the greatest danger Africa faces today?
Africa has returned to international competition arena. And that’s a good thing! Of course, this must be seen as an opportunity and not primarily as a risk. With respect and by looking at Africa through Africa and for Africa, rather than lazily and endlessly wondering if Africans are under influence.
And it is up to the citizens of African countries themselves to assess the quality of public policies pursued by their leaders, including in the complex field of natural resource exploitation. International cooperation can also contribute to this, by promoting more environmentally- and human rights-friendly technologies, and by providing points of comparison.
This is a topic we will explore from today and until February 28 in Cape Town at the Finance in Common (FiCS) summit that I lead, which brings together the 530 public development banks of the world—which account for 15% of total investment each year—with their partners to contribute to strengthening and renewing development financing in concrete terms. We expect to be about 2,000 people, at the same time and place as the first meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors of the G20. This is an important moment for Africa since it is the first time that South Africa presides the G20. Africa, too long isolated, is no longer. It is on its lands that the world gathers today.
