Grace Ashiru
Africa50 has landed fresh commitments from two European development finance institutions for a fund built to get climate infrastructure projects investment-ready before they ever reach a bank or private investor. Italy’s Cassa Depositi e Prestiti put in $40 million, while France’s Proparco added $10 million, both flowing into the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa Project Development Fund (AGIA-PD).
The fund’s job isn’t to finance construction. It’s to cover everything that has to happen before construction financing can even be secured: feasibility studies, technical assessments, project design, and the other groundwork that turns a rough infrastructure idea into something a debt or equity investor would actually consider funding. Africa50, which manages the fund, has been explicit that this early-stage gap, not a lack of capital broadly, is one of the biggest bottlenecks holding back private infrastructure investment on the continent.
AGIA-PD isn’t new. It hit a first close of $118 million back in August 2025, backed by a group that included the African Development Bank, Germany’s KfW, the West African Development Bank, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the Soros Economic Development Fund, and the African Climate Foundation. With CDP and Proparco’s commitments now added, the fund is working toward an eventual target of $400 million.
Africa50’s pitch is that this relatively modest sum could unlock a disproportionate amount of downstream investment, as much as $10 billion in bankable green infrastructure opportunities spanning energy transition and climate resilience projects. The new commitments were unveiled at Africa50’s Infra for Africa Forum in Dar es Salaam on August 5.
Notably, CDP’s contribution is being channeled through Italy’s Climate Fund and ties into Rome’s broader Mattei Plan for Africa, while Proparco has framed its investment around growing the pipeline of green infrastructure deals and supporting the continent’s energy transition more broadly.
