As we celebrate AfricInvest's 30th anniversary, we reaffirm our commitment to bettering lives in Africa and reflect on our three decades of impact and value creation on the continent. Our experience has shown that bringing about meaningful change requires a shared vision, rooted in the belief that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" (Alan Kay). We constantly ask: What would Africa look like if we fulfilled our mission of driving progress toward a just net zero, prosperous, equitable, healthy, and resilient continent? By envisioning this future, we identify the steps needed today to make it a reality, setting ambitious goals, and ensuring every action contributes to sustainable, inclusive growth for the continent.
In this year's report, we are pleased to share how our efforts are making a difference in areas such as healthcare, climate mitigation and adaptation, financial inclusion, job quality, education, gender equality, and cross-border cooperation. None of these achievements would have been possible without the dedication and partnership of our companies, our Limited Partners, and our people—the true enablers of our progress over the past 30 years. Their unwavering support has been instrumental in strengthening operations, refining processes, and upholding the highest standards of compliance, all of which are vital to our shared journey.
For those seeking meaningful impact, Africa represents a unique and compelling opportunity. Together, let us continue to push boundaries, seize new opportunities, and turn our shared vision into reality.
Download reportSince AfricInvest's launch 30 years ago, much has changed—our footprint has expanded across multiple dimensions, from assets under management to the size of our team, local offices, portfolio companies, verticals, asset classes, partners, and the diverse nationalities represented within our team—yet one thing remains constant: our mission to drive progress toward a prosperous, equitable, healthy, and resilient Africa by empowering scalable enterprises and creating sustainable value for both investors and communities, contributing to the global pathway toward a just net zero future.
In 2023, our portfolio companies achieved meaningful and measurable progress across our four impact pillars: Sustainable Economic Development, Environmental Sustainability, Equality and Inclusion, and Quality Institutions, Network and Services. Alongside driving and growing our impact, we have strengthened our impact management and measurement systems, enabling us to provide a holistic monetized figure for the impact generated by our investments through the Multiple of Impact (MOI).
By collaborating with The Bridgespan Group, alongside academics, business leaders, and non-profit organizations, we enhanced the MOI tool to better quantify complex but crucial impact areas, such as climate adaptation and quality job creation, which are particularly important in the African context.
We have also broadened the MOI's applicability to encompass various asset classes, including debt, equity, and venture capital. This evidence-driven tool allows investors to quantify and verify their impact, ensuring investments generate tangible and measurable benefits. By making the MOI tool open source, we aim to make rigorous impact measurement accessible to a broader audience, challenge misconceptions about the risk-return-impact relationship, and encourage increased capital flows to Africa’s private sector.
In 2023, we deepened climate accountability across all leadership levels and integrated comprehensive climate risk and opportunities assessments into every stage of our investment process. We continue to refine our Multiple of Impact (MOI) methodology with dynamic scenario analysis to proactively address the challenges of a warming world.
Our focus is on 'financing reduced emissions' rather than solely 'reducing financed emissions.' This enables us to support innovative climate solutions that may initially increase emissions but promise substantial long-term benefits. We are partnering with high-impact sectors like agribusiness, manufacturing, construction and transport to support their decarbonization efforts through innovative and scalable solutions, recognizing their crucial role in driving meaningful change.
We see climate change as the greatest health crisis of our time, with over half of public health emergencies in Africa over the past two decades being climate-related, as rising temperatures and extreme weather threaten millions. Our investments address climate, health, and biodiversity challenges, while also tackling broader issues such as pollution and biodiversity loss. We continuously enhance our approach to ensure we create lasting value for communities and ecosystems, fostering a more resilient and sustainable future.
In alignment with our mission to drive progress toward a prosperous, equitable, healthy, and resilient Africa, AfricInvest is advancing our strategic approach to climate integration and impact measurement. By 2026, we will have fully implemented the Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) guidelines, enabling us to proactively manage climate risks and seize investment opportunities that support the continent’s transition to a just net zero future.
Looking ahead, we will continue to refine and expand the MOI methodology, incorporating advancements to capture the impact of climate adaptation and corporate taxes collected in developing regions, while also enhancing the understanding of the Africa risk-return-impact equation by making the Multiple of Impact (MOI) a widely accessible tool that enables rigorous impact measurement and transparent reporting. Our goal is to dispel misconceptions and demonstrate that impact investing, merging financial returns with ultra-high multiples of impact, is an evidence-backed reality. We will collaborate with our partners to integrate the MOI into mainstream investment practices, empowering all investors to quantify and manage the social and environmental outcomes of their investments, and driving capital into Africa for sustainable growth.
Get your copy of the AfricInvest Impact Outlook report 2024.