Launch of the Local Content Champion Program: committed statements for converging visions
In the grand hall of the Radisson Collection hotel in Bamako, on 27 October 2025, a series of speeches delivered a shared message: the future of the mining sector will depend on a renewed alliance between the State and finance. The launch of the Local Content Champion Program (LCCP) provided the opportunity to lay its foundations.
Mr Sayouba Ouédraogo, Chief Executive Officer of AFG Bank Mali; Mr Sionlé Yeo, Chief Executive Officer of AFG Holding Group; and Professor Amadou Keïta, Minister of Mines of Mali.
Beneath the chandeliers of this prestigious venue in the Malian capital, the solemnity of the moment blended with a palpable sense of enthusiasm. One after another, voices took to the stage, sketching the contours of a shared ambition: a more inclusive mining sector, structured around local expertise and national financing. In the audience, representatives of the administration, mining executives, bankers and technical partners welcomed the scope of a programme that places a Malian bank at the heart of a new development dynamic.
The speeches by Professor Amadou Keïta, Minister of Mines of Mali; Mr Sionlé Yeo, Chief Executive Officer of AFG Holding; and Mr Sayouba Ouédraogo, Chief Executive Officer of AFG Bank Mali each offered a distinct yet complementary reading of the same project: making local content a lever for economic sovereignty and productive emancipation.
Professor Amadou Keïta: the State endorses the LCCP to foster national champions
Professor Amadou Keïta, Minister of Mines of Mali
When Professor Amadou Keïta, Minister of Mines, stepped up to the lectern, he opened with a touch of humour, immediately greeted with applause. In a ten-minute address, delivered under the watchful eye of Mr Boubacar Diané, Minister of Energy and Water, he reaffirmed the Government of Mali’s support for the Local Content Champion Program (LCCP):
“The State will stand alongside AFG Bank Mali to support this momentum, ensure its follow-up, and make it a model of public–private collaboration in the service of Mali.”
With this statement, the Minister placed the LCCP firmly within the continuity of the national local content policy and underscored the need for collective action to better structure national companies, which are expected to rise to the demanding standards of the mining industry.
He went on to note with pride:
“Our subcontracting companies are already exporting to Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Tanzania…”
And to commend, on behalf of the Government and the Malian people,
“those Malian mining actors who make us proud through their seriousness and their determination to conquer global markets.”
Turning to the reform diagnosis, Professor Keïta recalled:
“Mining companies had varying levels of sensitivity to local content issues (…) In 2021, local suppliers captured barely 30% of the sector’s procurement flows, valued at an estimated CFA 691 billion.”
Before adding:
“The challenge now is to strengthen this share and support the structuring and upgrading of our operators.”
He concluded by emphasising that while, as the State advocates, it is up to the private sector to provide the financial, material and human resources required for the development of the mining industry and to assume the associated risks, it is reassuring to see banking institutions such as AFG Bank Mali offering new financing solutions to national players—thereby reducing risks and dispelling the prevailing pessimism regarding the Malian private sector’s ability to successfully integrate into extractive industries.
Sionlé Yeo: AFG Holding’s strategy in service of local content
Mr Sionlé Yeo, Chief Executive Officer of AFG Holding Group
Mr Sionlé Yeo, Chief Executive Officer of AFG Holding Group, placed the LCCP within the Group’s continental strategy. Addressing the audience, he welcomed
“an initiative that creates value and impact,”
before stating:
“Investing in the structuring sectors of each country, supporting the emergence and growth of national champions, promoting the development of value chains and financial inclusion, in order to contribute to building sustainable national economies.”
Through these words, he recalled AFG’s mission: to support Africa’s economic transformation, drawing on forty years of experience and deep local knowledge. He stressed that the LCCP fits squarely within this approach:
“This innovative, value-creating programme confirms the driving role played by AFG Bank Mali’s Mining Desk within our Group.”
According to him, AFG’s commitment to local content is inspired by the trajectory of its founder, Mr Koné Dossonqui, a
“prototype of a national champion”
who built, over decades, a diversified conglomerate spanning finance, industry, agriculture, telecommunications, hospitality and now mining.
“The history of our Group is intertwined with that of its founder, a symbol of African success and the continent’s entrepreneurial capacity,”
he recalled.
He also mentioned the major turning point represented by the acquisition, in September 2025, of the Tongon gold mine in Côte d’Ivoire for approximately CFA 170.4 billion—marking the entry of an African player into the circle of world-class operators.
This acquisition illustrates AFG Holding’s conviction, he explained: African champions must be at the heart of value creation from their own resources. He concluded:
“We want to support Mali in its quest to maximise and sustain the value generated by the exploitation of its subsoil resources, for the benefit of its current population and future generations.”
Sayouba Ouédraogo: a quantified ambition and a clear course
Mr Sayouba Ouédraogo, Chief Executive Officer of AFG Bank Mali
Mr Sayouba Ouédraogo, Chief Executive Officer of AFG Bank Mali, detailed the programme’s operational rollout. Addressing the audience, he announced:
“An envelope of CFA 100 billion to help create 2,000 jobs by 2027, support around 150 local companies and bring at least thirty champions to the fore within the mining value chain.”
These figures, he explained, reflect AFG Bank Mali’s mission: to deliver tailored financing solutions and instruments adapted to local realities. He specified that the mechanisms deployed go far beyond traditional credit lines, incorporating leasing, factoring, guarantees and venture capital.
“We want to demonstrate that Malian players can rise to the standards of the mining industry,”
he affirmed.
For the Chief Executive Officer, the LCCP stands out through its integrated approach: financial support, training, strategic advisory services and connections with mining companies. A framework which, in his view,
“offers the Malian private sector the opportunity for sustainable scaling-up.”
He placed this initiative within the broader trajectory of AFG Bank Mali: positioning the bank as a central actor in productive financing, in the service of a stronger and better-structured national economic fabric.
A turning point in relations between the State, finance and industry
From the Minister of Mines’ address to those of AFG Group executives, a common thread emerged: a reimagined public–private partnership founded on the strengthening of the national private sector. The Local Content Champion Program appears, in this respect, as a concrete instrument of convergence. By enhancing the financial and technical capacities of local companies, it gives tangible form to the State’s ambition to make local content a driver of competitiveness and economic sovereignty.
The LCCP thus marks a turning point in relations between the State, finance and industry—a framework of trust in which financial institutions, exemplified by AFG Bank Mali, commit to supporting the country’s productive transformation.
For the bank, the challenge now is to embed this momentum over the long term and to demonstrate its impact through lasting results: better-financed, more resilient companies, fully integrated into the national value chain.
“An envelope of CFA 100 billion to help create 2,000 jobs by 2027, support around 150 local companies…”