Mobilising Investment for Sustainable Infrastructure

title: "Mobilising Investment for Sustainable Infrastructure" category: "Sustainable Development" location: "East Africa" summary: "Designed a blended finance strategy that unlocked capital and accelerated sustainable infrastructure projects." year: 2024 client: "Regional Development Bank consortium" order: 2

The challenge

A pipeline of fifteen renewable-energy and water projects worth over US $2 billion was stalled. Public balance sheets were exhausted, commercial lenders saw the deals as too small and too risky, and developers were burning runway waiting for certainty.

What we did

• Built a single blended-finance vehicle that pooled sovereign guarantees, concessional capital, and commercial debt under one set of terms.
• Standardised the credit and ESG diligence so a deal could move from origination to close in under nine months rather than two years.
• Convened a quarterly investor roundtable to give first-mover capital a clear line of sight to the next twelve months of issuance.

Outcomes

• Three projects reached financial close inside the first year, mobilising US $480 million.
• Cost of capital for the pipeline dropped by approximately 180 basis points compared to bilateral structures.
• The vehicle is now being replicated in a neighbouring region under the same template.