The Kenya Development Corporation (KDC) has secured a Sh500 million grant from the World Bank to boost its loans to companies managing climate-related shocks.
KDC General Manager Nora Ratimo said the company will receive the grant by the end of this financial year.
“We will get Sh500 million from the World Bank to cover climate shocks before the end of the financial year,” Ms. Ratimo said yesterday during the Association of African Development Finance Institutions’ 2024 Annual General Assembly in Nairobi.
The Abidjan-based institution is an umbrella body for 85 small, medium and large development finance institutions from more than 46 countries.
KDC is one of three development finance institutions in Kenya that are members of the Continental Lobby Group, which helps its member institutions raise capital from around the world.
The other two institutions are the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC), which provides low-cost loans to farmers, and the Kenya Industrial Estates (KIE), which provides industrial infrastructure, financial products and business development services.
“We are looking to raise $240 million (Sh31.8 billion) for our green fund which has a seed capital of $40 million (Sh5.3 billion). We are working to mobilize funds from new investors, development finance institutions (DFIs) and other partners,” Ms Ratimo added. To invest in the fund.
KDC is a state-owned development finance institution established in November 2020 by merging the operations of the Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation (ICDC), Tourism Finance Corporation (TFC) and IDB Capital Limited.
The company, which lends to large institutions, distributed low-cost loans worth Sh1.14 billion last year, even as it seeks to raise Sh10 billion from government and non-government sources in the financial year starting in July. KDC lent Sh357 million or 31.3 per cent of the total disbursements to processors while Sh205 million was loaned to companies dealing in post-harvest loss management.
Other major beneficiaries of parastatal funding included companies in the tourism sector, which received a loan of Sh213 million while the blue economy sector received Sh98 million. Wholesale and retail companies received Sh13 million while energy companies received Sh15 million while construction companies were loaned to the government. With a value of Sh37 million.
