Aug 24 (Reuters) – The New Development Bank created by BRICS countries in 2015 can help finance African countries’ projects to tackle their most urgent challenges, the bank’s president Dilma Rousseff said on Thursday.

The BRICS countries are “good partners” for Africa, former Brazilian President Rousseff said in a speech in Johannesburg, adding the bank would finance physical and digital infrastructure projects in Africa as well as educational ones.

“The New Development Bank has the potential to be the leader of projects that address the most urgent challenges of African countries,” she said, pointing out that although Africa’s share of foreign direct investment (FDI) rose to 8.8% of global FDI in 2021 from just 4.9% in 2010 it “can and must rise much more”.

One of the challenges to be overcome “is the expansion of payment mechanisms, notably local currencies and other financial instruments that may eventually be created in order to build a new, more multilateral and inclusive financial system”, she added.

Rousseff also pointed to the need for joint infrastructure projects between several countries, noting that Africa has the world’s greatest untapped hydroelectric potential.

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Mark Potter)