IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT ITFA AFRICA REGIONAL COMMITTEE (ARC), Jan 2023

Written by Duarte Pedreira, Crown Agents Bank, member of ITFA Board

The ITFA Africa Regional Committee’s first official mandate came to an end in November 2022 and an election was held to select those joining the second mandate, between 2022 and 2025. According to the ITFA ARC statutes, any ITFA member with business involving Africa can submit its candidacy to join the Committee.

At the end of the window for receiving applications we had collected expressions of interest from ten candidates, which were then subjected to the scrutiny of ITFA’s African membership base (only Africa domiciled members are entitled to vote in the ARC elections).

Two election rounds later (the election process was conducted electronically), the eight successful candidates for the newly elected 2022-2025 ITFA Africa Regional Committee were:

• Africa Global Trade Finance (Anne-Marie Woolley)
• African Development Bank (Bleming Nekati)
• African Export Import Bank (Eric Intong)
• African Trade Insurance Agency (Albert Rweyemamu)
• Crown Agents Bank (Duarte Pedreira)
• Investec Bank (George Wilson)
• Rand Merchant Bank (Louis du Plessis)
• Sullivan and Worcester UK (Simon Cook)

ITFA would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved – the ITFA members domiciled in Africa for their substantial engagement in the process, and naturally the candidates for your dedication to the ITFA cause.

During the ITFA ARC second mandate inaugural meeting, elected members chose George Wilson of Investec as their new Chair. George was an active ARC member during the first mandate and was a unanimous choice. After being elected, George stated that   “The hope and intent for the new ARC is to try and promote practical help and technical assistance for African trade finance market participants – from ESG and Regulatory concerns to documentation and enforceability.  We hope to garner a lot of direction and support from the Global ITFA community and align this with African trade interests.”

Finally, the newly elected ITFA ARC also expressed its appreciation to Eric Intong Monchu of Afreximbank, who Chaired the Committee during the first mandate and asides from championing some very key achievements for ITFA in Africa, also embodied Afreximbank’s unwavering commitment to ITFA.