FSD Africa is a specialist development agency established in 2012 to strengthen Africa’s financial markets. Based in Nairobi and operating across the continent, we partner with governments, financial institutions, investors, and development organizations to address systemic market constraints through technical assistance, policy and regulatory support, transaction development, and catalytic investment.

Our 2025–2030 strategy aims to transform how capital is allocated to benefit people and planet, building deeper, more resilient financial markets that address climate change, debt vulnerabilities, and gender inequalities while supporting sustainable economic growth.

The strategy prioritizes six areas: energy transition, adaptation finance, SME and early-stage finance, sovereign debt management, carbon markets, and women’s empowerment in climate finance. Climate and green finance will drive much of our impact, with growing emphasis on adaptation and resilience, where investment needs are significant and viable private-finance models remain limited.

We deliver through three pillars—Adaptation & Resilience, Financial Markets, and Early-Stage Finance—alongside FSD Africa Investments, supported by specialist expertise in energy, carbon, nature, and gender.

Our approach spans financial regulation, market infrastructure, institutional capacity, financial products, and investment mobilization. We prioritize unlocking domestic, local-currency, and institutional capital alongside international finance.

For cities, this means translating climate-risk evidence into investable project pipelines, strengthening project preparation and financial structuring, and building institutional capacity to attract private and blended finance for climate-resilient urban infrastructure.

Lagos Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan (LCARP), Nigeria. Since 2022, FSD Africa has supported Lagos State Government in developing an investment-focused adaptation framework addressing sea-level rise, extreme rainfall, and heat. LCARP identified 33 projects worth approximately USD 9 billion across sectors including water, sanitation, transport, energy, housing, and nature-based solutions. Subsequent support has prioritized projects and strengthened institutional capacity. Priority investments include the Eti-Osa Wastewater Treatment Plant, with USD 2.1 million committed for project preparation; waste-to-energy and flood-resilient housing projects; Igbonla Waterworks; and upgrades to mini and micro waterworks. Support combines feasibility studies, transaction advisory, and investor engagement to mobilize private and blended finance.

Nairobi Climate Adaptation and Resilience Program (NCARP), Kenya. Working with Nairobi City County Government, NCARP aims to translate climate-risk evidence into investable adaptation projects. Its four components cover climate-risk modeling, project pipeline development, project preparation and investor engagement, and institutional capacity building. Priority sectors include water and sanitation, flood management, waste, resilient infrastructure, housing, health, and nature-based solutions.

Ghana Green Project Preparation Facility. The Facility supports climate-aligned infrastructure projects from concept development through feasibility, financial structuring, and financial close. Activities include project screening, technical and financial studies, transaction advisory, and capital mobilization. Early-stage preparation is grant-funded, with returnable grants and cost-recovery mechanisms envisioned for later stages. Current projects include the Volta River Authority’s proposed 75 MW wind project and Nilex Properties’ student accommodation development.

Members can learn more through the FSD Africa website, our publications and case studies, and our participation in CCFLA action groups, webinars and member convenings. We welcome collaboration on city-level climate-risk analytics, project pipeline development, project-preparation facilities, adaptation finance tracking, blended-finance structures, subnational and thematic bonds, guarantees, investor mobilisation and capacity building. 
 
We are particularly interested in working with members that can bring city pipelines, specialist project-preparation expertise, concessional or catalytic capital, credit enhancement, transaction advisory, or opportunities to test and replicate financing models across African cities.  

Additionally, members can explore our work at https://fsdafrica.org. 

We combine evidence and market intelligence from city governments, national agencies, development finance institutions, climate funds, investors, research organisations and practitioner networks. We follow CCFLA research and action-group discussions, including the State of Cities Climate Finance work and project-preparation resources, alongside publications and events from organisations such as Climate Policy Initiative, C40 Cities, ICLEI, the World Bank, African Development Bank and the Global Center on Adaptation. 
 
Our programmes also provide direct market learning. Engagement with city and state officials, project sponsors, financiers and technical partners help us understand where projects stall, what investors require and which instruments can unlock capital. We complement this with peer exchange, conferences, webinars, policy reviews and lessons from live transactions across African markets.

As a new member, FSD Africa expects to benefit from CCFLA’s global network, evidence base and convening power. CCFLA provides an important platform to exchange practical lessons with cities, project-preparation facilities, investors, development partners and technical organisations working to accelerate urban climate finance. 
 
We particularly value opportunities to benchmark our work, strengthen partnerships around project preparation and capital mobilisation, and connect African city pipelines with relevant expertise and financing. CCFLA’s action groups and knowledge resources can also help us test new approaches, share lessons from Nairobi, Lagos and Ghana, and identify models that can be adapted across other African cities.

As a new member, FSD Africa expects to contribute practical experience from designing and implementing urban and subnational climate-finance programmes in Africa. We can share lessons from NCARP and LCARP on turning climate-risk evidence into prioritised investment pipelines, and from the Ghana Green Project Preparation Facility on building the governance, funding and operating systems needed to prepare projects for financing. 
 
We also hope to contribute insights on blended finance, local-currency and capital-markets solutions, catalytic investment, sustainable insurance, guarantees, investor engagement and institutional capacity building. Through CCFLA action groups and member activities, we can provide African market perspectives, develop case studies and knowledge products, support peer learning, and help connect members with city governments, project sponsors, financial institutions and implementation partners across our network.