Africa’s first-of-its-kind nature fund targets $ 100mln

Finance Earth, FSD Africa and FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi) have launched Africa’s first-of-its-kind nature financing platform, targeting $ 100 million to support early-stage nature conservation and nature-based carbon projects across the continent.

Rwanda, the Africa Nature Impact Fund aims to secure its first close of $20 million in 2027, backed by a GBP 5 million ($ 6.6 million) cornerstone commitment from FSDAi.

Funding nature-based projects:

The fund seeks to address the financing gap facing nature and biodiversity projects across Africa, where more than 62% of GDP depends on natural capital. Many projects struggle to secure the funding, technical support and market access needed to scale.

Africa Nature aims to protect or restore 4.5 million hectares of land, sequester or avoid more than 100 million tons of CO₂ equivalent over project lifetimes, and improve the livelihoods of 1.4 million people, half of them women. It also targets the protection of more than 60 animal and plant species.

The platform builds on FSD Africa’s Carbon Accelerator Program for the Environment (CAPE), delivered with Finance Earth. The program has assessed more than 300 projects and developed a pipeline representing over 3.4 billion tons of potential CO₂ equivalent reductions across 76.5 million hectares.

Drawing on CAPE’s experience, Africa Nature will provide financing tailored to different stages of project development, from preparation and commercial piloting to implementation, helping projects progress from pre-revenue stages to sustainable, long-term contracted revenue.

Prioritizing communities, local investment:

The fund will prioritize projects with benefit-sharing arrangements that direct a substantial share of gross carbon value to host communities, targeting around $ 450 million in financial benefits for local communities.

It also aims to strengthen local ownership and investment capacity by partnering with African financial institutions, including local banks and investors, to support long-term project governance and financing. The platform seeks to ensure that African nature assets are increasingly financed and managed by African capital rather than capital leaving the continent.

James Mansfield, managing director of Finance Earth, said: “Africa holds a quarter of the planet’s biodiversity, yet nature-based projects across the continent face major challenges in accessing the patient, fairly structured capital they need to succeed. Africa Nature is designed to change this by financing projects equitably and building local investment and governance structures, so that African nature assets are financed by African financial institutions. This announcement marks a critical milestone in the delivery of this vision and the culmination of our partnership with FSD Africa to date.”

Ann-Marie Chidzero, chief investment officer at FSDAi, said: “Catalytic capital works hardest when it unlocks markets that would otherwise remain out of reach. By anchoring the Africa Nature Impact Fund with much needed catalytic capital, we aim to de-risk high-integrity nature projects and crowd in the institutional and local investment that African landscapes and communities urgently need. This is exactly the kind of pioneering, high-impact structure FSD Africa Investments exists to support.”