Finance Earth, FSD Africa and FSD Africa Investments launch $100 million Africa Nature Impact Fund

Finance Earth, FSD Africa and FSD Africa Investments launched the Africa Nature Impact Fund at the Carbon Markets Africa Summit in Kigali. The $100 million platform will finance nature-based carbon and biodiversity projects. The fund is targeting a $20 million first close in 2027.

FSD Africa Investments has proposed a $6.6 million cornerstone commitment to that first close, about a third of the $20 million target.

More than 62% of Africa's GDP depends on natural capital, according to ESG News. The fund plans staged financing across project preparation, commercial piloting and implementation, aiming to move projects from pre-revenue development into operations supported by contracted income.

The fund's stated targets span 4.5 million hectares of land protected or regenerated and more than 100 million tonnes of CO2e avoided or sequestered over project lifetimes. It aims to protect more than 60 animal and plant species and to improve livelihoods for 1.4 million people, with women accounting for half of the beneficiaries.

Africa Nature says it will finance projects with arrangements that allocate a substantial proportion of gross carbon revenue to host communities, and it targets approximately $450 million in community benefits over project lifetimes.

The platform builds on FSD Africa's Carbon Accelerator Programme for the Environment, delivered in partnership with Finance Earth. CAPE has assessed more than 300 projects and developed a pipeline representing over 3.4 billion tonnes of potential CO2e impact across 76.5 million hectares. The fund's 4.5 million-hectare target is about 6% of that pipeline's land area. The fund frames the assessed pipeline as the source of projects capable of attracting institutional investment.