How the RA Retained Value Standard works
Five tests of how much of a deal stays in the country.
Most coverage of African deals asks how big they are. The RA Retained Value Standard asks a different question: how much of the value stays in the country. It is Regenerative Africa’s core test of whether an investment builds lasting local value, and it is built from our work on the ground rather than from desk scores.
The five tests
Every verified deal or policy with named parties in the week’s briefing is checked against five tests. Each test that is met scores one point, so a deal scores from 0 to 5.
- Local ownership. National or African investors hold a real stake in the project or company, not a token share.
- Local processing. A processing or manufacturing stage happens in the country, rather than raw materials leaving for value to be added elsewhere.
- Local procurement. There is a binding local-content commitment with a target, for suppliers, contractors or services.
- Jobs and skills. There is a published commitment on local employment, training or management roles.
- Fiscal take and published terms. The deal pays standard tax terms, and the contract or its key terms are public.
Disclosed, or not yet
A test scores only when the parties have disclosed enough to judge it. “Not disclosed” is an open question, not a bad mark: a deal that scores 0 because nothing is public yet is a deal to watch, not a deal that has failed. Where a test is disclosed and not met, we say so.
The local processing test applies only when a deal makes a product, or exists to power or move one for processing. For services such as telecoms or banking, for pipelines carrying finished goods and for power sold to the grid, it is marked “Not applicable” and the deal is scored out of four, shown as “2 of 4”.
For each deal we also list what to ask the parties, so readers in a position to ask can close the gaps.
What we score, and what we do not
We score deals and policies that are verified and have named parties. A fact counts only if it traces to a primary source, such as a company filing, a government text or a regulator’s notice, or to two independent established outlets. Anything unverified, or without terms we can examine, is listed with the reason it was not scored.
Following a deal over time
Each deal is tracked through four stages: announced, signed, financed and operating. Scores are updated as the parties disclose more, so a deal’s score can rise as its terms become public, or fall if a commitment is dropped.
Where to find it
The standard appears every week in RA Weekly Intelligence, in the section “Who keeps the value”. The free edition shows the first test for each deal; the subscriber edition shows all five, what to ask the parties, and every deal tracked to operation.