Meet members of our advisory board

Meet our advisors...

We sat down with advisory board member Hoda Atia Moustafa to get her input on a number of issues relating to the road and transport investment sector.

Moustafa is the Head of the Africa Regional Office of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the political risk insurance and credit enhancement arm of the World Bank Group.

She is responsible for enhancing MIGA's support for the private investors in Africa and strengthening key partnerships.

1. What do you think is the most fundamental challenge when it comes to securing funding in the road/transport sector?

Properly structuring transactions to ensure sufficient revenue stream to service debt, while taking into account possible changes in government regulations that could impact existing arrangements in place.

2. What innovative models or out of the box thinking have you seen that could apply to the Africansector?

MIGA has supported a project bond on a PPP project in Turkey that was based on an availability payment scheme and was de-risked via construction, liquidity, and termination guarantees offered by EBRD and MIGA.

We would like to replicate this for a transport project in Africa. 

3. Private sector participation is vital - how do we encourage their participation through the legislative, regulatory and economic environments across the continent?

Having PPP legislation and a specialised PPP Unit to focus on private sector participation is essential. Even more important is that these regulations are fully consistent with existing laws and that the units are working seamlessly with relevant ministries to implement these projects. 

4. What is the most important message you would share with stakeholders within the transport/roads sector when it comes to investment?

Proper risk allocation between the public and private sector is key and should be examined BEFORE an investment takes place, ideally at very early stages.

Dialogue between governments, implementing agencies and investors needs to be an ongoing process to avoid surprises down the line. 

5. What is the thing you love most about your job?

I love meeting clients and talking about prospects for new opportunities, especially the most transformational ones that have high development impact.

Then the most rewarding is actually seeing them happen!

6. Who is the person who has most inspired you?

This will sound cheesy, but it is my mother. She grew up in a working class family in Cairo and was always told that as a woman, she shouldn’t bother with school since she would just end up getting married.

She took on the challenge, ended up getting a scholarship to study engineering at the University of California Berkeley, and later become the first female PhD followed by a successful career in academia.

It is this kind of drive in the face of doubt that I find incredibly inspiring.  

7. If you weren't doing this, what would you be doing? 

I love teaching. When I was younger I wanted to teach math and I still think that would be incredibly rewarding.

I also have been teaching fitness classes for the last 10 years and it is a true passion. So I guess I would be teaching others in some form or fashion.

Hoda Atia Moustafa is one of the advisory board members for the Africa Infrastructure and Investment Congress 2019, taking place in Nairobi in September #ARIIC2019