We believe new and improved access to infrastructure can drive action on the climate and nature, while accelerating sustainable development. This is now the urgent purpose of everything we do.
Accelerating sustainable development and reducing poverty will be impossible without taking action that promotes climate resilience and nature.
With over two decades’ experience in infrastructure development and financing across Africa and Asia, we have learned what works – our task now is to quickly scale our impact. We plan to achieve this by working systematically in partnership with the private sector, development finance institutions and providers of catalytic capital.
Our strategic priorities
Our collective task is to build an economy that can meet people’s basic needs and aspirations while protecting and restoring the natural capital of our planet. We are making a number of key shifts to rise to the scale of the current challenges:
1.
Elevating climate action together with sustainable development as the main purpose of our infrastructure financing and capital market development efforts.
2.
Scaling our impact with new ambition and urgency – measured as new and improved access to infrastructure and improved climate resilience – working more systematically in partnership with the private sector and development finance institutions.
3.
A more deliberate and coordinated origination and product strategy, which involves:
- Scaling up project development and early stage work in partnership with others.
- Unlocking local currency domestic institutional capital for infrastructure investment, and accelerating the deployment and effectiveness of guarantees and local credit enhancement facilities.
- Attracting and deploying capital from commercial investors into climate resilience and just energy transitions through (1) EAIF – growing the fund and further sharpening its climate focus, and (2) GuarantCo – through credit enhancement and risk mitigation.
Project development arm and platform:
Attracting grant, concessional capital and private sector contributions (with guarantees) and deploying patient capital at an early stage. Substantially scaling up the pipeline of bankable and operational projects, built to internationally investable standards.
Local credit enhancement facilities:
Working with strategic regional partners and local investors to roll out local credit enhancement facilities in Africa and Asia.
4.
A more strategic focus on project origination. Deliberately targeting impact at scale through growth in selected combinations of geographies / sectors / products.
5.
Growing the level of investment that we deliver while balancing financial sustainability with sustainable development impact at scale.
6.
Nurturing a culture of radical collaboration – within the Group and with partners as a solution provider and a bridge between development and private finance.
Our focus
We will continue to work beyond the comfort zones of infrastructure investment, innovating where it matters most. We will focus on on:
- Supporting least-developed countries (LDCs).
- Solutions that attract new sources of capital into early stage project development, equity investment and credit enhancement facilities.
- New technologies in developing and emerging markets.
- Nature-based solutions and green-grey solutions that improve infrastructure while protecting/restoring/regenerating nature.
- Our value proposition to other investors and private-sector partners on our capacity to: raise health, safety, environment and social standards (HSES); implement a climate, nature and gender inclusion lens in infrastructure; and manage and demonstrate sustainable development impact.
Investment themes and broad sector framework
We will take a more strategic origination approach, focusing on scaling up impact through a deliberate investment focus on combinations of sectors, geographies and products.
Our impact
Over the past two decades, we have successfully delivered 233 infrastructure projects, enabling 228 million people to access new or improved infrastructure.
Our companies
