The Development Bank of South Africa founded in 1983 (DBSA) is a Development Finance Institution wholly owned by the Government of South Africa and focuses on large infrastructure projects within the public and private sector. It is one of several development finance institutions in Southern Africa.
The DBSA plays multiple roles of Financier, Advisor, Partner, Implementer and Integrator to mobilise finance and expertise for development projects. The DBSA concentrates at the moment on infra structure projects. It seeks to play a pivotal role in delivering developmental infrastructure in South Africa and the rest of the African continent.
The Development Bank of South Africa DBSA
The DBSA support South Africa’s regional integration agenda through providing development finance for infrastructure projects in four priority sectors; energy (including renewable energy and energy efficiency), transportation (road, rail and ports), bulk water and ICT, across Africa.
DBSA primarily plays a key role in the preparation, funding and building phases of the infrastructure development value chain.
The DBSA supports the South African government in leveraging skills and capabilities to accelerate the implementation of infrastructure programmes in the key priority education sectors of education, health and housing, as well as various municipal infrastructure programmes.
It aims to advance the development impact in the region by expanding access to development finance and effectively integrating and implementing sustainable development solutions. Their strategy is driven by the need to create world class infrastructure catalyzing capabilities in an ever-increasing competitive environment. The DBSA has chosen to respond in ways that will give effect to that, and has initiated actions to achieve that.
Objectives of the Development Bank of South Africa
The main objectives are the promotion of economic development and growth, human resource development, institutional capacity building, and the support of development projects in the region.
The DBSA has refined its strategic objectives to support its transformation journey and have defined the following three key strategic objectives:
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- Sustained growth in developmental impact: Grow each of our businesses aggressively to maximise developmental impact.
- Integrated infrastructure solutions provider: Provide integrated infrastructure solutions, across the value chain and be the partner of choice for infrastructure solutions.
- Financial sustainability: Maintain profitability and operational efficiency to enable growth in equity and fund developmental activities.
- Improve the quality of life of people through the development of social infrastructure
- Support economic growth through the investment in economic infrastructure
- Support regional integration
- Promote sustainable use of scarce resource
The demand for infrastructure development in Africa is extensive and one of the key bottlenecks is the development and preparation of bankable projects. In addition, the planning and delivery of large infrastructure projects is complex and fraught with risk.
Hence, many projects fail or are implemented with budget and timeline overruns. Over time, many DFIs have tried to fill the space where government capacity is low and risk is high. Although this landscape is evolving and expanding, current DFIs in Africa have not proven a large scale successful model.
This need and these challenges translate into an opportunity for the DBSA to create a high-skill, scaled-up, end-to-end project development and preparation business that de-risks projects and delivers project concepts to bankability.
DBSA aims to support the de-risking of infrastructure project and deliver project concepts to bankability through Project identification, Feasibility assessments,Technical assistance, Financial structuring, Managing project preparation funds and Security as mandated lead arranger role for DBSA.
Services offered by the Development Bank of South Africa
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- Municipal Projects
The DBSA provides planning, financing and implementation support to municipalities which includes:
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- water and sanitation
- electricity
- roads
- houses
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- Economic Infrastructure Projects
Economic infrastructure is infrastructure aimed at addressing capacity and bottleneck constraints in order to optimise economic growth potential. We support the following:
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- Bulk water;
- Transportation/logistics;
- Power/energy;
- Telecommunications; and
- Liquid fuels (oil/gas).
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- Social Infrastructure Projects
Social infrastructure is infrastructure aimed at addressing backlogs and expediting the delivery of essential social services in support of sustainable living conditions and improved quality of life within communities. It supports planning, financing and implementation support to non-municipal infrastructure projects including:
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- Bulk water (financing)
- Higher education (financing)
- Student accommodation
- Project implementation support for the construction and maintenance of houses, schools and health facilities
| 4. Regional Integration | ||
| The DBSA supports South Africa’s governments regional development and integration strategy, aimed at facilitating trade in Africa by investing in infrastructure projects outside South Africa. | ||
At DTC we understand the complexities of the various funding agencies and the unique application criteria for each. We have assisted thousands of entrepreneurs through the application process to access funding for businesses, and we can assist you with the same.
Contact us for more information on funding through the Development Bank of South Africa DBSA.
