IFC West Africa Infrastructure Lead Joins MSGBC 2026 as Basin Enters Financing Phase
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Fatoumata Sissoko-Sy, Manager: Infrastructure and Natural Resources for West and Central Africa at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has joined the MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power 2026 speaker lineup. Her participation comes as the region enters a new investment phase, backed by new project startups and efforts to accelerate oil, gas and infrastructure development.
IFC is the World Bank Group's private-sector lending arm and committed a record $71.7 billion globally, including mobilized capital, in fiscal year 2025. This followed a record $14.2 billion invested across Africa in fiscal year 2024. That capital deployment is increasingly extending into the investment and infrastructure priorities emerging across the MSGBC region.
IFC is active in both of the basin's anchor economies. In Mauritania, the institution provided technical support for the 2025 Investment Code reform, which modernized the legal and regulatory framework for private investment. Since July 2025, 19 projects totaling approximately $120 million in declared investment have been approved under the revised code. In Senegal, IFC has financed solar independent power projects through its Scaling Solar platform and in March 2026 partnered with Société Générale Sénégal on a €50 million lending facility aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises.
The financing requirements for gas infrastructure across the basin are growing. Senegal plans to build a 400 km gas pipeline network connecting offshore production to domestic consumers and is structuring the project around public-private partnerships to attract outside capital. The government also doubled the capital base of its sovereign wealth fund FONSIS to $280 million in early 2026, directing the increase toward gas infrastructure investment.
At last year's MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power conference, the Society of Petroleum Engineers put a $375 billion price tag on Africa's gas development needs over the coming decade, with the organization’s Africa Director Riverson Oppong noting that weak commercial frameworks and limited access to financing continue to keep the continent out of global gas markets. During this year’s edition, IFC and Sissoko-Sy are expected to address how institutional financing can continue to bridge the gap and reconnect the region’s gas projects to international capital.
Sissoko-Sy oversees IFC's infrastructure and natural resources portfolio across West and Central Africa. Recent transactions in these regions include a €27 million equity stake in mini-grid operator WeLight in June 2026, part of the World Bank Group and African Development Bank's Mission 300 initiative to expand electricity access for 300 million people by 2030. She also led IFC's €80 million financing for Orange Mali in November 2025 to expand broadband and digital infrastructure across the country.
Her participation at MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power 2026 brings a development finance lens to the conference agenda, now shifting from exploration and production toward infrastructure buildout and capital mobilization.
MSGBC Oil, Gas & Power 2026 takes place December 1–3 in Dakar, Senegal, with the pre-conference day on December 1 and the main conference and exhibition running December 2–3. Visit msgbcoilgasandpower.com for more information.