On February 17, 2023 the AfricaGoGreen Fund (AGGF)—which invests in projects in Africa that mitigate or reduce greenhouse gas emissions—announced its second fundraising close with investments from IFC, the African Development Bank, the Nordic Development Fund, the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa and Calvert Impact Investments.
New funding totaling $47 million in equity and $40 million in debt will allow AGGF to broaden its financing for climate-friendly projects in Africa. Maybe the most important of these initiatives involves retrofitting existing buildings for energy efficiency, which has many spin-off benefits that help revitalize cities.
Other initiatives include purchasing high-efficiency appliances and industrial equipment, building new green buildings and installing rooftop solar and battery storage for residential, commercial, and industrial consumers.
IFC provided $17 million in equity, which includes financing from the IDA20 Private Sector Window Blended Finance Facility. In addition to equity, IFC committed $30 million in debt to the fund, providing AGGF with long-term capital to complete the second close fundraise.
“IFC is partnering with AfricaGoGreen because its innovative energy efficiency-focus is making critical capital available to businesses that are supporting the region’s energy transformation while also expanding access to electricity, green building, and e-mobility solutions,” said Henrik Elschner Pedersen, IFC Regional Industry Director in Africa for Manufacturing, Agribusiness, and Services.
The African Development Bank, the Nordic Development Fund, and the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa each invested $10 million equity in the fund. An additional $10 million in debt from Calvert Impact Capital was closed in December 2022.
“With AGGF, we are breaking new ground in supporting the African climate transition. The urgency of combatting global warming forces all of us to leave no stone unturned to reduce C02 emissions. This is precisely what AGGF has been set up to do. Having such a strong group of investors shows broad alignment on the objectives of AGGF. We are proud to be given the opportunity to meet the tasks and challenges ahead of us,” said Clemens Calice, CEO of LHGP.
Launched by KfW, on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in early 2021 and managed by LHGP Asset Management, AGGF is the first structured debt fund in Africa focused on energy efficiency solutions.
“KfW is glad to welcome the new investors to the AfricaGoGreen Fund, which was initiated with seed capital from the German Government. We hope that more like-minded investors will follow. This successful second fundraising demonstrates that the fund is on track to play a crucial part in the just energy transition in Africa,” said Johannes Scholl, Head of Division at KfW.
The fund targets reaching between $230 million and $250 million at final close. With the current fundraising round, total funding stands at $138 million, demonstrating that the fund is getting traction to reach its full scale.
“With great pride, the African Development Bank and the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa united other investors with the same ambition to build a more climate-resilient Africa and support the decarbonization of African countries. We look forward to seeing other like-minded development institutions and commercial investors join us in fighting the detrimental impacts of climate change on the continent,” said Dr. Daniel Schroth, Director of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Department.
AGGF is accompanied by a technical assistance facility of $3.3 million provided by KfW on behalf of BMZ, which supports project development and market studies, and provides transaction advisory and capacity building to stakeholders.
“Increasing access to clean and affordable energy in Africa is key for achieving the SDGs and enhancing climate resilience. AGGF is a trailblazing initiative to promote energy efficiency, not only through financing, but also by strengthening the enabling environment through capacity-building and developing regulations. NDF is a proud early-stage and catalytic investor in AGGF and looks forward to joining forces with AfDB, KfW, IFC, SEFA, Lion’s Head and other partners to deliver climate action,” said Henrik Franklin, Director for Portfolio Origination and Management, Nordic Development Fund.
Fully operational since 2021, AGGF has provided financing to AktivCo, a telecom tower distributed generation energy services company, to develop clean energy solutions for powering telecommunication towers in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire and Niger, and to BBOXX, a pay-as-you-go solar-powered solutions provider, to accelerate access to clean cooking solutions for millions of Africans. AGGF has also more recently closed the Solarise transaction investing in energy efficient appliances in Kenya, South Africa and Mauritius, and upsized both the AktivCo and BBOXX transactions.
Photo of Plateau district in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire is by Abdallah Hussein via Wikipedia.