International Finance Corp (IFC), the private-sector lender of the World Bank, is to select next week a private equity fund manager to raise as much as $750m initially to help finance joint Arab infrastructure projects, Reuters has reported. The fund manager will operate the Arab Financing Facility for Infrastructure (AFFI), which eventually should raise about $1bn, Peter Tropper, chief investment officer at the IFC's Private Equity Funds and Global Financial Markets department, said. The AFFI will mostly focus on boosting public-private partnerships and regional connections in electricity, rail, road and maritime networks. The fund will also provide the possibility of Islamic financing.