United States (U.S.) International De­velopment Finance Corporation (DFC) has approved 22 new projects totalling more than $697 mil­lion to support development projects in infrastructure, increasing food security, and small businesses in Nigeria and other parts of the world.

DFC partners the private sector to finance solutions to the most critical challenges facing the developing world.

The other one is a $65 mil­lion loan to SFC Finance Lim­ited (dba AfricInvest Private Credit) to fund on-lending to small businesses throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, expand­ing access to term loans and working capital, especially among women-owned and women-led enterprises.

Also, DFC approved a $20 million loan to the African Local Currency Bond Fund to support capital market de­velopment and financial in­clusion for small businesses, an equity investment of up to $15 million to Inside Equity Fund II to support the fund’s expansion of investments in underserved small businesses in Southeast Africa; a $500,000 technical assistance grant to Pezesha Africa Limited will provide the enterprise capi­tal to leverage data science, machine learning, and other advanced computing tech­nologies to further develop its credit scoring algorithm, enhancing its sustainable lending practices to small businesses in sub-Saharan Africa.