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US Export-Import Bank has no strategy for Africa
The U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) lacks a clear strategy for Africa and the trade it is supposed to support is declining, a U.S. government watchdog audit says.
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The U.S. agency tasked with supporting American jobs by facilitating the sale of goods and services abroad “failed to make meaningful progress” in sub-Saharan Africa, the agency’s inspector general for audits and evaluations wrote in a report, according to the financial news outlet Bloomberg.
The report also found that there was no office or department responsible for overseeing strategy in the region, which includes Portuguese-speaking African countries, and that the bank’s programs had little to no impact on jobs.
The assessment of the Export-Import Bank’s performance, which has operated in sub-Saharan Africa since the 1940s, comes as U.S. President Joe Biden has stepped up efforts to engage with the continent amid competition with China for critical minerals needed to transition to cleaner energy sources.
In response to the findings, the bank said it has “the largest credit exposure in [Africa] of any region” and that the review “omitted critical elements that would have altered the conclusions.”
Since 2022, the agency’s president and chairwoman, Reta Jo Lewis, has traveled to Africa eight times, meeting with more than 60 heads of state and government officials, the Ex-Im said, adding: “The report does not provide a comprehensive view of our efforts in the region.”
The period covered by the report is 2013 to 2023, but for four of those years, Ex-Im was unable to authorize any financing because it lacked a quorum on its board, and authorizations for loans and guarantees have remained below 2014 levels except for Mozambique and Angola, the report says.
In 2019, the bank authorized a $5 billion loan for a natural gas project in northern Mozambique led by TotalEnergies, and it approved a $907 million loan for solar panels in Angola last year.
Ex-Im is also among the financial institutions involved in the Lobito Corridor project, a coast-to-coast link connecting Zambia to the port of Lobito.
As of 2020, the U.S. was sub-Saharan Africa’s fourth-largest trading partner, behind China, India and the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg said.
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