Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much funding has been in invested by the CDC Group in Azalai Hotels Group to date.

CDC's investment into Azalai is centred on creating jobs and stability in some of the world's most challenged countries: Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, and Cote d'Ivoire. Since 2015 the company has created over 150 new permanent jobs in the formal economy. In addition to job creation, the investment has wider benefits to the local and national economies. For example, by purchasing locally sourced goods and services and by improving economic infrastructure.

CDC's investment into Azalia is via two funds: AfricInvest III and Cauris Croissance. CDC's partnership model, investing through fund managers, helps it achieve impact at scale by supporting hundreds of SMEs across Africa and South Asia. In addition to backing local teams of investors, and equipping them with strong Environmental, Social and Governance practises, the model helps support the development of self-sustaining local finance markets.

CDC publishes the amounts it invests directly into businesses and into investment funds on its website www.cdcgroup.com. Amounts invested by fund managers into individual companies are not published as this information is commercially sensitive.