Acre Impact Capital
This award is specifically for the innovative financial structures using new instruments and other mechanisms for impact investments. Innovations can include funding instruments or structures, impact delivery mechanisms and innovation in lending schemes to targeted beneficiaries.
Overview
Acre Impact Capital’s Export Finance Fund I is the first private debt fund dedicated to financing the underfunded 15% commercial portion
of export credit agency (ECA) backed infrastructure projects in Africa. By providing this specialist funding, the fund enables the remaining 85% of project costs to be guaranteed by ECAs and funded by commercial banks, unlocking private sector capital that would otherwise not flow to these projects.
The problem
Attracting commercial finance for infrastructure projects in Africa is challenging. Many investors are wary due to perceived high risks, long
project timelines and limited access to credit and political risk insurance. This often means projects struggle to reach financial close.
An innovative solution
Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) offer an innovative solution. By providing government backed guarantees for up to 85% of loan amounts, ECAs reduce the risk for commercial lenders. This support makes it possible to secure longer-term loans – up to 22 years – and at borrowing costs up to 40% lower than traditional commercial financing.
Acre’s fund model builds on this foundation. It pools capital from a wide range of investors – including development finance institutions (like EIB, IDC and FSD Africa), African commercial banks and US-based impact investors and family offices. Rather than funding one project
at a time, the fund aims to invest in 20 projects across sectors like health, energy and water. This spreads risk and makes it easier for investors to participate.
The model also blends public and private capital. With ECAs covering most of the loan, only a small portion – typically 15% – needs to come from commercial sources. Acre either funds this remaining portion directly or works with African banks to do so. This coordination ensures projects can unlock the guaranteed financing and move forward.
Delivering impact
Acre is an impact-first infrastructure investor committed to delivering sustainable, inclusive growth across Africa. The fund focuses on four key themes – renewable energy, health and water security, sustainable cities and green transport – all critical to improving quality of life and building climate resilience. By financing essential infrastructure, Acre helps increase access to services like electricity, healthcare, clean water and safe mobility, especially in underserved communities.
To ensure its investments deliver meaningful and measurable results, Acre applies a rigorous impact management system across the project lifecycle. The fund aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and draws on industry-leading frameworks such as the Impact Frontiers’ five dimensions of impact and the Global Impact Investing Network’s IRIS+ taxonomy to track specific outcomes. Impact considerations are fully embedded into the fund’s due diligence and monitoring
processes, which include ESG risk screening, gender assessments and emissions accounting based on scientific methodologies. Acre is a signatory to the 2X Challenge for gender-smart investing, follows the Operating Principles for Impact Management and is aligned with the EIB Climate Bank Roadmap, reinforcing its commitment to best-in-class impact standards.
Over the life of the fund, Acre expects to mobilise $1.7bn in private capital, finance 20 infrastructure projects and reach 13m people with improved access to basic services. The fund also aims to support the creation of 4,000 quality jobs and ensure its investments have a long-term development footprint. To this end, financing structures include maintenance budgets during the operations phase, helping ensure that solar energy systems, hospitals, water infrastructure, roads and stormwater systems continue delivering benefits well into the future.
The fund tracks a range of key performance indicators to monitor progress. These include the value of interest savings achieved for sovereign borrowers, the number of African financial institutions participating in export finance deals, the proportion of investees advancing women in the workforce and emissions avoided through low-carbon infrastructure. Projected reach across impact themes includes 2.4m people in renewable energy, 7.8m in health, food and water security, 1.3m in sustainable cities and 1.5m in green transport.
Managing risk
Acre’s model, while innovative and impactful, also carries inherent risks – particularly around the quality, reliability and long-term sustainability of the infrastructure it helps finance. Poor construction, cost overruns, or inadequate planning for operations and maintenance could undermine both the financial viability and development impact of a project. There’s also a risk that projects may drift from their intended impact objectives or become misaligned with the SDGs over time.
To mitigate these risks, Acre conducts thorough due diligence early in the project lifecycle, identifying potential challenges related to technical design, financial sustainability and social or environmental compliance. The fund works closely with reputable engineering, procurement and
construction contractors who have a strong global track record and are aligned with SDG principles. Acre also ensures that each project includes a clear, sustainable plan for covering operational expenses and long-term maintenance, reducing the risk of infrastructure falling into disrepair. Where necessary, Acre partners with co-funders and sectoral experts to strengthen risk management and ensure projects stay on course, both in delivery and in delivering impact.
Catalysing capital
The Acre Impact Capital fund model is deliberately designed to be catalytic, mobilising far greater sums of private capital than it deploys directly. With a target raise of $300m, the fund is expected to unlock up to $1.7bn in private sector investment – representing a catalytic ratio of approximately
5.6 times its own capital.
With an investment period of four years and a five-year management period, Acre is well-positioned to take the long-term view needed for infrastructure delivery. Its willingness to take calculated risks on foreign investment, backed by early support from catalytic funders such as the Rockefeller Foundation, PIDG and Convergence, cements its role as a first mover – crowding in private capital to tackle Africa’s persistent infrastructure financing gap.
Scaling up
The success of the Acre Capital model lies in its ability to blend public and private capital in a way that reduces risk, enhances impact and unlocks scale. By demonstrating that African infrastructure investments can deliver measurable outcomes and attract commercial finance through the use of ECA guarantees, the fund is already shifting investor perceptions around African sovereign risk. This track record creates a strong foundation for scaling. As more investors gain confidence in the model, future funds can raise larger amounts of capital and attract a broader range of institutional investors.
The fund’s cross-sectoral focus allows for horizontal scaling across sectors, while its alignment with the SDGs and integration of gender and climate lenses position it well to access growing pools of sustainable and impact capital from DFIs, philanthropic backers and climate funds. By encouraging
local partners to adopt higher ESG and impact standards, using globally recognised frameworks like the IFC Performance Standards and Equator Principles, Acre is not only delivering development outcomes but also improving the investability of future projects. Its co-investment approach with
local financial institutions further enhances replicability and lays the groundwork for a scalable model that could be adapted in other emerging markets worldwide.
The model is most effective in markets with high unmet infrastructure needs and strong demand, where the financing gap is significant enough to justify the fund structure. In smaller or less capital-intensive markets, replicating the model may be less efficient due to a lack of sufficient project volume.
Acre’s recent first close was at $100m in April 2024 and it plans to raise up to $300m, signalling growing momentum. If met, these targets would not only consolidate Acre’s position in the African infrastructure space but also pave the way for regional or thematic replication of the model on a much larger scale.
A learning journey
The journey behind Acre Impact Capital reflects a central insight: that designing effective, impact-focused finance vehicles requires a deep understanding of the unmet needs in the market and a commitment to working collaboratively with stakeholders to deliver ambitious but pragmatic solutions. The three co-founders each brought unique and complementary perspectives shaped by
long careers in sustainable finance, capital markets and export finance. Through their work in both public and private sectors, they saw firsthand how critical infrastructure projects in developing markets were repeatedly stalling – not due to lack of demand or viability, but because of structural gaps in commercial bank appetite for the uncovered tranches of ECA-backed loans. These gaps were
preventing billions in catalytic capital from reaching the places that needed it most.
The team quickly recognised that solving the problem required more than just capital – it required a finance model built on trust, technical rigour and alignment with the real-world constraints of both governments and investors. Early engagement with the Rockefeller Foundation proved pivotal. Through close collaboration, the team authored the white paper, Leveraging ECA Finance for Impact Investing, which crystallised their thinking and sparked wider interest in the concept. This was followed by catalytic support from the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), enabling the transition from theory to practice. These partnerships helped shape a fund model
grounded in global best practices but tailored to the realities of African infrastructure financing. The successful first close of Acre Export Finance Fund I is not just a funding milestone – it is the outcome of years of listening to the market, refining the approach and building the collaborative networks needed to deliver long-term, high-impact results.
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