Rod Evison, Managing Director, Africa, CDC Group

Abstract

CDC’s genesis was, perhaps surprisingly, not that altruistic. Conceived in 1947, following a record-breaking harsh winter that devastated British agricultural production and forced the government to draw up plans for a famine relief programme, CDC’s initial brief was to invest on a break-even basis in agricultural and commodities production in former and remaining colonies, in order to help meet basic needs in Britain and boost those nations’ export incomes, reducing their reliance on financial support from the UK, which was itself saved from bankruptcy only by borrowing heavily from the USA.