MEDICAL CREDIT FUND

The project is a loan to the Medical Credit Fund (MCF), a fund that provides debt financing to healthcare providers and companies providing support services to the health sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. The fund's mission is to improve access to quality healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially for underserved populations.

MCF will provide loans or partial guarantees to partner financial institutions and other intermediaries (such as non-bank financial institutions, leasing companies or supply chain partners), to on-lend as senior secured and partially secured loans and supply chain financing to the benefit of private companies across the healthcare value chain, including primary healthcare providers, networks of clinics and health facilities, and companies providing support services to the health sector (e.g. equipment maintenance, health worker training institutes, etc.). Loans will be accompanied with technical assistance to improve end-borrowers' business performance and quality of operations and/or to support MCF's financial partners in developing their healthcare lending activities. Access to healthcare services in Sub-Saharan Africa is generally scarce due to lack of infrastructure, low quality existing facilities and scarcity of medical staff of all types. About half of the healthcare services is provided by private actors. The private healthcare sector is highly fragmented and in majority composed of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with limited access to financing due to their lack of banking history and/or collateral and to the high investment risk and limited profitability conventionally associated with the health sector. MCF will therefore contribute to increased availability and quality of healthcare service (through financing of private hospitals, clinics and other healthcare providers), healthcare equipment and medical supplies, and healthcare support services.

MCF's operational guidelines include environmental and social guidelines that are in line with the EIB policies. Individual projects will benefit from individual approaches, depending on the size and area of intervention.

MCF will be required to ensure that implementation of the underlying projects is done in accordance with procurement rules acceptable to the EIB.