A Framework for Domestic Capital Mobilisation in Emerging Markets

Hello,

It’s been a minute. Life happened - school, life, health, but I am glad to share that I am back to regular programming. The impact investing sector in Africa is growing, with great structural initiatives like the Ci Gaba Fund in Ghana  that are shifting from conversation to implementation of domestic capital mobilisation. These developments motivate me and give me hope that this will be a staple in your inboxes or LinkedIn - take your pick. 

Welcome to this July edition of the Africa Impact Review newsletter - a cross-section of updates and resources from the Impact sector. This edition, being the first in this resumption quest, carries updates from June and July. I will be sharing a comprehensive update forthnightly.

Enjoy, and as always, share thoughts, updates for amplification and anything that you consider worthwhile via [email protected]. Also, tell a friend to tell a friend.

FINANCING & INVESTING

▶ Global Innovation Fund secures $50M for GIF Growth, an evergreen blended debt vehicle now halfway to its $100 million target. The fund combines concessional equity, guarantees, and private debt from FCDO, Global Affairs Canada, Sida, Banca Etica, and others to provide $1M–$10M growth debt to impact enterprises across emerging markets.

▶ The Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF) has secured $90 million for Fund Two, building on its pioneering $58 million Fund One to scale climate-resilient agribusinesses across East, West, and now North Africa. Anchored by the Green Climate Fund, FMO, and Proparco, the fund targets 4 million additional smallholder farmers.

▶ Impact Fund Denmark has deployed a EUR 25 million subordinated debt facility to NSIA Banque Côte d'Ivoire to expand the bank's capital base for MSME lending. 80% of the facility will fund MSME credit expansion, with the remaining 20% ring-fenced for green financing in renewable energy and e-mobility.

▶ NADF has partnered with Convergence Blended Finance to launch a blended finance framework that uses concessionary public capital and first-loss tranches to crowd Nigerian pension and insurance capital into agribusiness. NADF is currently curating a pipeline to structure at least one demonstrative transaction this year.

▶ Catalyst Fund has secured $30 million in the second close of its debut climatetech vehicle, with backing from IFC, FASA, Shell Foundation, and Trafigura Foundation. The pan-African fund has already invested in 28 startups across 10 markets and plans to back 40 pre-seed to Series A companies building climate resilience solutions.

▶ IFC has made a $10 million equity investment in CrossBoundary Access to scale the company's mini-grid and battery-as-a-service portfolio across Sub-Saharan Africa. CrossBoundary Access currently powers over 170,000 people in Nigeria and Madagascar and is working toward reaching one million.

▶ TLG Capital has reached a $120 million second close for its TLG Africa Growth Impact Fund II (AGIF II), led by Proparco and Calvert Impact Capital. The fund has already deployed debt facilities of $5–$15 million to nine SMEs across seven countries using its bank-originated, guarantee-backed lending model.

▶ The EBRD and the European Commission have launched an $80 million guarantee facility to de-risk climate investments in Africa, following the EBRD's first regional office opening in Lagos. The facility targets clean energy, industrial decarbonisation, and critical raw materials projects, arriving shortly after the World Bank scaled back its own climate finance commitments.

▶ The Bank of Zambia and Zambia NABII have launched the Small Business Growth Initiative (SBGI), anchored by ZMW 5 billion ($190 million) in central bank seed funding to expand affordable financing for MSMEs. The facility uses a credit guarantee scheme and an alternative capital sleeve to mitigate risk for participating financial institutions and attract DFIs and strategic investors, with full rollout planned for Q4 2026.

ECOSYSTEM & POLICY

▶ Kenya has launched a $263.8 million programme to build a more climate-resilient agricultural sector across 10 western counties. The Integrated Natural Resources Management Programme (INReMP), backed by IFAD, is expected to directly benefit more than two million people in over 407,000 vulnerable rural households.

▶ GSG Impact, working with its Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia National Partners, is pushing to remove structural barriers to impact investing and widen SME access to finance across the continent. The initiative's recommendations on domestic capital, de-risking tools, and impact transparency helped shape the Sevilla Commitment, secured through engagement at FFD4 in Seville and TICAD 9 in Tokyo.

▶ Zambia is pursuing small business growth as a pathway to a more inclusive economy, anchored by the Bank of Zambia's $260 million Small and Growing Business Initiative alongside diaspora-funded vehicles like the Zambia Business Angels Network and Africa Equity Group's Borderless Africa fund. The efforts aim to counter a mining-driven growth model that has largely bypassed local ownership.

RESOURCES

▶ Impact Investing Ghana and Savannah Impact Advisory have published a Framework for Domestic Capital Mobilisation in Emerging Markets, drawing on lessons from Ghana's Ci-Gaba Fund. The framework maps the local leadership, capacity building, and regulatory enablers needed to channel domestic pension capital into productive investment.

▶ A companion publication outlines the lessons from Ci-Gaba, West Africa's first pension-backed fund-of-funds, which is working to unlock a share of Africa's $700 billion pension pool for SMEs facing a $331 billion financing gap. The piece details the catalytic partnerships and trustee training that turned pension trustee skepticism into commitment.

▶ GSG Impact has published “A New Lens on SME Mobilisation: How to Maximise Private Capital Flows to SMEs,” introducing the concept of “secondary mobilisation” — private capital catalysed downstream of DFI-supported banks and funds that goes largely untracked. Drawing on 13 case studies, the report from a working group with BII, Norfund, and DFC offers a roadmap for DFIs to recognize, track, and scale this hidden channel of SME finance.

▶ GSG Impact's partnership with Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working to strengthen impact ecosystems and mobilise SME capital across Africa, focused on Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, and Zambia. The initiative has already helped Burkina Faso join the GSG Impact Partnership as a National Partner, with Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, and Ethiopia establishing Taskforces toward the same status.

▶ The Ethiopia Impact Investing Landscape Mapping, led by ACE Advisors as part of GSG Impact's six-country programme with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, maps the country's path to becoming a frontier impact market against a USD 608 billion SDG financing gap. It finds an ecosystem still reliant on DFIs and foreign capital while domestic pools like pension and insurance funds remain largely inaccessible, and a persistent “missing middle” starving growth-stage SMEs of the finance they need to scale. The report sets out priority levers across five pillars to shift the system, starting with a national coordination platform to align government, donors, DFIs, investors, and intermediaries.

▶ Convergence Blended Finance has published a new whitepaper examining private capital mobilization in Ghana and the role blended finance can play in the country's recovery, following the 2022 sovereign debt default that drove high inflation, currency depreciation, and fiscal constraints. With fiscal consolidation limiting the government's ability to finance investment needs through public spending alone, the paper argues that combining concessional and private capital is central to improving project bankability and closing Ghana's investment gap.

Contact: [email protected]