Speaker Series: Amy Stambach
On October 9, 2026, Reuters reported that the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) intends to expand equity investments in Africa, including in critical minerals projects. The announcement illustrates a consequential change in U.S. foreign policy: As grant-based assistance continues to contract, federal authority to finance and acquire commercial interests in overseas enterprises is expanding. Congress established the legal basis for this expansion through the DFC Modernization Reauthorization Act of 2025, enacted as part of the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act. The legislation increased DFC’s maximum contingent liability from $60 billion to $205 billion, expanded country eligibility, and authorized a $5 billion revolving equity fund. Investment proceeds retained by that fund support further transactions, while the BUILD Act separately provides for conditional dividend payments to the U.S. Treasury. These authorities connect overseas development financing to potential financial benefits for private investors and the U.S. Treasury.
Drawing on my work at USAID and on a Senate foreign policy team, this talk examines how the DFC and congressional actors define and implement these authorities. Loans and political risk insurance place federal backing behind private ventures. Equity investments give the government an ownership interest in their commercial performance. Financing mineral extraction and related infrastructure can simultaneously secure supply chains, create opportunities for American firms, and strengthen relationships with partner governments. The central question, however, is how these transactions serve the national interest, and who has authority to make that determination. Congressional disputes over investments in high-income countries reveal competing understandings of FC’s statutory purpose. Prioritizing commercially attractive or strategically designated transactions may divert financing form poorer countries whose development sustains long-term diplomatic relationships. The talk considers whether existing eligibility rules and oversight requirements adequately govern the relationship among private gain, public financial exposure, and national security.
To register, contact Sophie Kofman at skofman@abfn.org.
Professor Amy Stambach is a cultural anthropologist whose research examines the production and mobilization of environmental knowledge. Her anthropological work began with studying Tanzanian education programs designed to build a post-colonial and post-socialist national citizenry. That work led to her interest in U.S. evangelical religious groups’ involvement in providing education to students in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda and, more recently, to the study of China-Africa educational programs as seen from the perspectives of Tanzanian, Kenyan, and Rwandan university students and higher education professionals.