DGGF’s Seed Capital and Business Development supports AHIF

DGGF’s Seed Capital and Business Development (SC&BD) Facility is supporting the pilot Africa Health Infrastructure Fund (AHIF), initiated by PharmAccess. AHIF is a unique debt provider dedicated to address a critical gap in facilitating access to finance for African SMEs operating in the health sector.

SMEs health finance

SMEs health finance represents a greatly underserved market in Africa that is not well served by banks because of the lack of collateral, perceived risk and understanding of the specificities of the health sector. AHIF works with local financial partners to provide flexible debt solutions combined with tailor-made technical assistance, to enable healthcare companies to serve more customers better, with an emphasis on those currently underserved.

Focus on innovation

Over the past twelve months, the initiative has fostered co-investments with local banks, catalysing additional resources and educating traditional financiers towards serving the health sector in Africa. A constant focus has been kept on innovation. The pilot has ventured into invoice financing for pharmaceutical suppliers in Kenya, allowing pharmacies and clinics to overcome the bottlenecks of short-term financing. A receivable financing product using national health insurance claims for clinics in Ghana has also been successfully tested. The loan portfolio currently extends from Kenya and Tanzania, to Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia.

Medical Credit Fund

As the pilot initiative will be incorporated in the new financing round of the Medical Credit Fund, DGGF/SCBD support has already been proven catalytic in terms of attracting follow on investors.

More information

For more information, please read the press release on the website of PharmAccess.