A €150 million (N$2.9 billion) bet has been placed on Southern Africa’s future. An infrastructural venture of high-stakes to position Namibia and South Africa as global leaders in the green hydrogen revolution. Spearheaded by Climate Fund Managers (CFM), the new Climate Investor Three (CI3) fund is a calculated blend of European capital and African ambition, aiming to build an entire industry from the arid soil and abundant sunshine of the region.
At its core, the fund is a massive financial engine designed to solve a critical problem: green energy projects, especially in a nascent sector like hydrogen, are seen as risky. To counter this, CI3 employs a blended finance model. European donors have put in the first €150 million as a financial cushion. This public money acts as a safety net, absorbing the high-stakes risks of early-stage development. The goal? To make these projects palatable to massive private sector investors, the institutional capital needed to truly drive impact at scale.
This financial architecture is where business and politics merge. The fund is structured as a family of funds, with specific branches reaching dip into the national fabric of its partners. In Namibia, it’s called SDG Namibia One. This is an identified foreign investment, directly partnering with the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF).
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