Understanding Africa’s Broken Climate Finance System: How the Missing Layers in the Capital Stack are Holding the Market Back
June 15, 2026
Africa needs roughly $277 billion a year in climate finance to meet its 2030 climate goals. Yet as Gagandeep Bakshi at the William Davidson Institute and Santosh Singh at Intellecap explain, with annual flows of $44-50 billion, the gap is considerable — and investors are pulling back just as the need for this funding is growing. Making matters worse, they argue that the problem is not just in the numbers, since beneath these totals, there is a thin layer of capital piling into a handful of companies and countries, while missing layers in the capital stack prevent the emergence of a more balanced market. They explore how this issue is holding investors and entrepreneurs back, and propose a more effective approach.
