Africa Climate Fund Overview

Nov 16, 2025 0

Climate change is a pressing reality affecting communities across the globe, particularly in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa contributes less than 4% to global greenhouse gas emissions but remains the most vulnerable region to climate change impacts. Investments in energy and climate resilience in the region are crucial.

Given the urgency and seriousness of this challenge, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) is mandated to make an ambitious contribution to the united global response to climate change. GCF was established by 194 governments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in developing countries, and to help vulnerable societies adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. GCF is a unique global platform to respond to climate change by investing in low-emission and climate-resilient development.

Key Initiatives and Funds

Several initiatives and funds are playing a critical role in addressing climate change in Africa. Here's an overview of some of the key players:

Green Climate Fund (GCF)

The GCF’s junior first-loss equity investment into ICRF marks its single largest equity investment in Africa to date. Approved during the recently concluded 35th meeting of the GCF Board, this landmark transaction also represents GCF’s biggest commitment to an Africa-wide multi-country program, facilitating AFC’s innovative introduction of climate-resilient infrastructure as a new asset class in the African investment landscape.

Yannick Glemarec, GCF Executive Director, said: “ICRF is a pioneering fund that will catalyze the development of climate-resilient infrastructure across Africa. The GCF's US$240 million equity investment will support the incremental cost required to integrate adaptation and climate-resilient measures into climate-proofing infrastructure, thereby de-risking participation of commercial institutional investors to mobilize funding at scale. It will also serve as a model for local banks and financial institutions to engage in climate finance. GCF’s first-loss anchor investment in ICRF will mobilize African pension funds and other private investors to invest in climate-resilient infrastructure as a new asset class in Africa.

By blending concessional capital into the Fund, ICRF will attract commercial capital to climate-resilient infrastructure in Africa, with the first-loss position of concessional capital from the GCF encouraging the flow of private capital to climate-resilient infrastructure investment opportunities. By building reliable infrastructure services, GCF’s investment is projected to benefit up to 50 million people directly and 144 million people indirectly.

Africa Finance Corporation (AFC)

Incheon (South Korea) March 21, 2023 - Africa Finance Corporation, Africa’s leading infrastructure solutions provider, and its asset management unit AFC Capital Partners have secured a US$253 million commitment from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) towards its inaugural offering, the Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund (ICRF).

AFC was established in 2007 to be the catalyst for private sector-led infrastructure investment across Africa. Sixteen years on, AFC has developed a track record as the partner of choice in Africa for investing and delivering on instrumental, high-quality infrastructure assets that provide essential services in the core infrastructure sectors of power, natural resources, heavy industry, transport, and telecommunications. AFC has invested US$11.5 billion in 36 countries across Africa since inception.

Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund (ICRF)

With a target fund size of US$750 million, ICRF is an innovative finance instrument established to climate proof Africa’s infrastructure by integrating scientific climate-resilient measures in the planning, design, development, construction and operation of infrastructure assets in alignment with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Through ICRF, AFC Capital Partners will finance greenfield and brownfield infrastructure that is planned, designed, built and operated in a way that anticipates, prepares for, and adapts to the continent’s changing climate conditions. The ICRF will target institutional investors including African pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies.

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We are leveraging the massive untapped pool of institutional capital to provide climate finance at scale to bridge Africa's infrastructure deficit and unleash its economic potential. The ICRF will target 19 countries including Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Togo and Zambia.

African Development Bank (AfDB)

The African Development Bank (AfDB), headquartered in Côte d’Ivoire, is an international entity established in Africa during the 1960s with the objective of supporting the economic development and social progress of countries in Africa by promoting investment of public and private capital in projects and programmes that aim to reduce poverty and improve living conditions.

AfDB’s strategy for 2013-2022 focuses on two objectives: improving the quality of Africa’s growth; and the transition to green growth. As part of its objective to transition to green growth, AfDB undertook important initiatives to address climate change in Africa through the implementation of a five-year climate change action plan from 2011 to 2015, including the mobilization to date of approximately US$ 6.5 billion including from external sources, resulting in over 80 climate-resilient projects and almost 90 low-carbon development projects in Africa. AfDB committed to invest US$ 9.6 billion for climate finance in Africa by the end of 2015.

Its adaptation activities includes activities relating to agriculture, rural living conditions, water resources and forests, while its mitigation activities focus on sustainable transport, renewable energy and energy efficiency, and sustainable land-use systems. The African Development Bank, through the Africa NDC Hub, supports the implementation of Africa’s NDCs.

Africa Climate Change Fund (ACCF)

The ACCF was established in 2014 first as a bilateral thematic trust fund with an initial contribution of €4.725 million from Germany through its international development agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ). ACCF was converted to a multi-donor trust fund in 2017 with contributions from the Governments of Flanders, Belgium and Italy. The current size is $40.64 million.

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The Fund was created to provide small grants to African governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and regional institutions to support African countries in transitioning towards climate-resilient, low-carbon development, while promoting gender equality, empowering women and youth, and ensuring the inclusion of vulnerable communities. In 2021, the ACCF did not mobilize new resources. The ACCF complements the African Development Bank’s target to triple climate finance to African countries.

Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility (AFRI-RES)

Under the Next Generation Africa Climate Business Plan, knowledge generation plays a critical role in driving transformational climate action. Specialized sector or thematically focused trust funds, such as the Africa Climate Investment Facility (AFRI-RES), are important resources for creating robust analytics and building capacities.

AFRI-RES is a partnership between the Africa Union, African Development Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the World Bank Group that was established with support from the Nordic Development Fund (NDF). is a multi-donor trust fund established in 2014 and hosted by the African Development Bank.

Key Challenges and Opportunities

Rising temperatures, infrequent precipitation patterns, flooding and other extreme weather patterns threaten critical existing and yet-to-be-built infrastructure across sub-Saharan Africa - a region already challenged by infrastructure that is low in quantity, quality and accessibility. Climate change also heightens pre-existing investment barriers, putting economic growth and development at risk across significant regions.

The problem of financing climate-resilient infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa amounts to a financial summit of investment barriers that few private investors are currently willing to scale. To address this, GCF will supply junior first-loss equity to catalyze further financing from private sector investors and pension funds. The ICRF supports development of climate-resilient infrastructure projects in a region struggling to unlock such funding in isolation.

Africa faces the combined challenges of high youth unemployment and increasing climate vulnerability. Demonstrating its recognition of this importance, the region has set new targets to increase renewable energy generation capacity from 28 to 28 gigawatts, support integrated landscape management of more than 60 million hectares in 20 countries, and improve the livelihoods of more than 10 million farmers through climate-smart agriculture.

International climate finance flows remains heavily concentrated in a small number of African countries, with top ten countries receiving 46% of total funding, while ten African countries that are the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change receive only 11% of the finance, leaving them severely underfunded.

Private sector finance almost doubled between 2019/20 and 2021/22 (to reach USD 8 billion), demonstrating a substantive growth in commercial participation and market development. Climate finance flows continue to be primarily in the form of debt instruments despite high debt vulnerability in the region.

Examples of Climate Investment Funds (CIF) Support

The Climate Investment Funds (CIF), since its inception, has invested in 21 countries in the region: from Ethiopia in the East, across to Sierra Leone in the West, and down to South Africa - the region's biggest economy. It is supporting the delivery of clean technology and climate resilience in various ways.

South Africa: CIF’s Clean Technology Fund is supporting South Africa in diversifying its energy mix, in accordance with the country’s climate change strategy, and helping to overcome barriers to public and private investments in wind, solar, and energy efficiency. It has enabled the first-ever private-sector, utility-scale concentrated solar power plant in the developing world.
Mozambique: CIF’s Forest Investment Program (FIP) is empowering Mozambique to reduce deforestation and forest degradation by 40 percent by 2030. National interventions aim to promote sustainable rural development, while the private sector is being engaged to link communities to opportunities provided by the forest sector’s plantation investment.
Ghana: FIP supports projects that unite public and private sectors with Indigenous groups in restoring degraded forest landscapes, including promoting sustainable cocoa and agriculture practices, while securing the right of tenure for Indigenous peoples, among other policy reforms.

Fund	Description	Focus Areas
Green Climate Fund (GCF)	Global platform investing in low-emission and climate-resilient development.	Reducing GHG emissions, helping vulnerable societies adapt to climate change.
Africa Finance Corporation (AFC)	Catalyst for private sector-led infrastructure investment across Africa.	Power, natural resources, heavy industry, transport, and telecommunications.
Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund (ICRF)	Innovative finance instrument to climate-proof Africa’s infrastructure.	Integrating climate-resilient measures in infrastructure projects.
African Development Bank (AfDB)	Supports economic development and social progress in Africa.	Green growth, climate change action, adaptation, and mitigation.
Africa Climate Change Fund (ACCF)	Provides small grants for climate-resilient, low-carbon development.	Supporting African countries in transitioning towards climate-resilient, low-carbon development.
Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility (AFRI-RES)	Resources for creating robust analytics and building capacities.	Transformational climate action.