Nairobi, Kenya, 7 October 2026 – Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB) today launched its first sustainable bond issuance, worth FCFA 60 billion (approximately USD 100 million). The issuance will mobilize local-currency resources to finance affordable and sustainable housing projects in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) region.
The transaction is arranged by CGF Bourse Dakar as Lead Arranger, with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Ecobank Group, through Ecobank Senegal, as anchor investors.
The issuance is structured in two tranches: a five-year tranche at 6.10% and a seven-year tranche at 6.30%. The subscription period runs from 7 to 30 October 2026.
"Our ambition is not simply to raise capital, but to build a more diversified and resilient financing platform for housing and urban development across Africa," said Nabil Mahfoudh, Director of Treasury at Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB). "Deepening our presence in West African capital markets, allows us to connect local savings with urgent development needs within the region and to deploy financing in the same currency that local developers earn their income."
A new stage in ShafDB's transformation
This transaction is part of the strategic transformation of Shelter Afrique Development Bank into a pan-African multilateral development bank, with the ambition of scaling up and significantly increasing its impact across its 44 shareholder countries.
The transformation is accompanied by a strategy to diversify the institution's funding sources, increase its access to African capital markets, mobilize new resources from international partners, and strengthen its capital base, in order to better meet the scale of the continent's financing needs.
Financing housing in local currency
The housing market in the WAEMU region faces a significant structural deficit. According to estimates cited by the World Bank Group, the deficit is around 3.5 million housing units, with nearly 250,000 additional units needed each year to keep pace with population growth and urbanization.
ShafDB's issuance therefore aims to channel financial resources toward affordable, sustainable and energy-efficient housing projects, while better matching the currency of the financing with that of the revenues the projects generate.
For ShafDB, the use of local currency is an essential lever for financing the real estate sector. By aligning the financing currency with project revenues, this approach helps reduce borrowers' exposure to currency risk, which is particularly important for medium- and long-term real estate investments.
A sustainable financing framework developed with GGGI
In preparing this issuance, ShafDB partnered with the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) to develop and publish its Sustainable Financing Framework.
The framework received a favorable opinion from S&P Global, strengthening the credibility and transparency of ShafDB's approach to sustainable finance and its alignment with the principles applicable to green and social financial instruments.
The transaction has also passed a major regulatory milestone with the approval (visa) of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers de l'UMOA (AMF-UMOA).
Mobilizing African savings for development
This issuance also forms part of the momentum behind the New African Financial Architecture for Development (NAFAD), as enshrined in the Abidjan Consensus, which aims to strengthen the mobilization of African savings and further develop the continent's capital markets, as a complement to international resources.
The goal is to encourage greater mobilization of domestic and regional resources to finance Africa's development priorities, particularly in housing, urban infrastructure and sustainable development.
With long-standing experience in African capital markets, Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB) has to date completed 11 bond issuances across various markets on the continent, demonstrating its ability to mobilize local-currency resources from African investors. The most recent took place in April 2022 on the Nigerian market, where the institution raised NGN 46 billion, approximately USD 110 million.
A new chapter for ShafDB
Through this sustainable bond issuance, Shelter Afrique Development Bank reaffirms its commitment to playing a greater role in mobilizing African capital and in financing the housing and urban development solutions the continent needs.
