What is the Africa Capital Hub?
The Africa Capital Hub (ACH) is a transaction-focused initiative with a mission to mobilise private, public, and philanthropic capital at scale for environmental and social projects.
The ACH aims to facilitate US$1 billion in investment by 2030 for projects in Africa focusing primarily on five key sectors - agriculture, energy, infrastructure, education, and health -
​The ACH will provide broad-based catalytic support that includes financial technical assistance, financial structuring, financial engineering expertise, and investor outreach support to accelerate flows of capital into high-impact initiatives.
DNA
Transactional
The ACH will mobilise capital through a multifaceted ecosystem approach based on four key transaction-focused services: Neutral Capital Centre, Africa Finance Framework, Africa Investment Specialists, and Technical Assistance and Project Pipeline Support.
Neutral
The ACH is capital neutral and non-competitive: it does not have its own balance sheet. The Hub captures and analyses data, assesses risks, measures project bankability, and facilitates public-private alliances to mobilise blended investments that will drive SDG-focused activity at scale.
Pan-African Aligned
The ACH will focus on Africa-led partnerships and pan-continental initiatives, exploring African assets and further harmonising its investment landscape, while supporting governments in their efforts to achieve sustainability commitments as signatories to major initiatives such as the Nairobi Declaration and the Africa Green Industrialisation Initiative.
Why is the ACH Needed?
Africa stands at a crucial crossroads in its pursuit of sustainable development. It is grappling with the ‘Triple Planetary Crisis’ of biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution alongside striving to ensure continued economic growth.
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Several issues continue to hinder the effective leverage of Africa’s domestic financial resources.
Scale
Sustainable finance initiatives are small and fragmented. Speed and scale of capital mobilisation are not fit for purpose.
Alignment
Competing private and public interests, not leveraging public investment to mobilise capital.
Capacity
Critical shortage of deal structuring and execution capacity in governments and support ecosystem. Lack of investable deals at scale.
These challenges have contributed to a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) funding gap of about US$194 billion. This gap presents a major opportunity for governments and private investors to a play a significant role in driving transformational change across Africa.
What are the ACH’s Key Objectives?
01
To attract sustainable finance and strengthen local capacity to ensure its optimal allocation into high-impact projects in Africa.
02
To provide tools and data that lower the cost of capital, improve bankability assessments, and increase investor confidence in markets across the continent.
03
To leverage pan-African initiatives and further harmonise the investment landscape to accelerate the scaling up and replication of innovations and initiatives that support the SDG.
Operating as a neutral and transaction-focused initiative, the ACH’s mission is to mobilise capital at scale for social and environmental initiatives in Africa and build local capacity across the continent.
Scale and speed of capital mobilisation limiting the ability to fund critical development projects
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Sustainable finance initiatives that are small, fragmented, slow, and cannot be replicated
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Constrained alignment of Africa’s global wealth with government-led development initiatives
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Critical shortage of resources in governments to structure bankable development projects and outcomes
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Fragmented investment landscape; inefficient and competing public and private interests
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Constrained capacity in governments on innovative and efficient ways to attract and deploy SDG capital
US$ 1Bn in SDG capital from private, public, and philanthropic investors deployed before 2030
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Capital deployed optimally and at speed with the right quantitative and qualitative data support
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Increase of public finance efficiency and alignment of government and investor resources
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Developed green and social-linked project pipeline that can attract domestic and international capital
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Ecosystem-level financing to attract private and philanthropic capital and strengthen Africa’s sustainable investment capacity
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Africa Investment Specialists enabe the replication of successful financing mechanisms by governments and financial players