(Business in Cameroon) - The African Guarantee Fund (AGF), presented as the first Pan African guarantee fund dedicated to SME, just appointed Cameroonian statistical engineer and economist Jules Ngankam, as Deputy Managing Director, we officially learned.

A former senior manager at Barclays bank in London, where he spent 8 years, Jules Ngankam graduated from ESSEC Paris and the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique (Ensae) in France. He joined the African Guarantee Fund in 2013, as Director, Administration and Finance, a position he held before being recently promoted to the position of Deputy Managing Director.

Based in Nairobi, Kenya, AGF has, in four years of operation provided guarantees which helped in disbursing funding in 38 African countries via 85 financial establishments. Over 5,000 SME across the continent benefitted from this funding, we learned.

In 2013, this Pan African guarantee fund signed with the Employers’ Association of Cameroon (Gicam) and a banking pool (SGBC, BICEC, Afriland First Bank, Ecobank, BGFI), a memorandum of understanding for 100 million dollars (about FCfa 60 billion) meant to set up a pilot project for financing and support for local SMEs.

Created and founded by the African Development Bank (AfDB), AGF has in its portfolio shareholders such as the French Development Agency (AFD). Other shareholders include the Nordic Development Fund (NDF), the common development financing institution for the five Nordic countries; or the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.

BRM