british_international, Author at British International Investment

Mobilising private capital at scale for climate and development

Posted on June 3, 2026 by british_international

Our anchor investment in the ACE fund is unlocking institutional capital for climate-focused investments across emerging markets

The scale of investment required to tackle climate change and support sustainable growth in emerging markets far exceeds the capacity of development finance institutions alone. Mobilising private capital alongside public funding is therefore critical to achieving impact at scale.

In 2025, we became an anchor investor in the Allianz Credit Emerging Markets (ACE) fund, a landmark blended finance vehicle targeting up to $1 billion in investment.

The fund brings together development finance institutions, multilateral banks and private investors within a blended structure. Concessional capital from public institutions, including our $40 million commitment, provides a first-loss tranche that reduces risk and volatility for commercial investors. This will enable up to a further $850 million in private capital to be mobilised into emerging markets.

At first close, the fund secured $690 million in commitments, including $540 million of commercial capital, demonstrating strong investor appetite for well-structured opportunities that combine financial returns with climate and development impact.

ACE will invest in private credit across sectors such as clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, agriculture and financial services, supporting Paris Agreement goals while directing capital to underserved markets across Africa, Asia and beyond.

Our commitment to the ACE fund highlights how we are using concessional capital strategically to unlock significantly larger flows of private finance and help build scalable models for investment in emerging economies.

Scaling climate finance in South-East Asia

Posted on June 3, 2026 by british_international

Our partnership with Pentagreen is mobilising private capital to support green infrastructure and accelerate the low-carbon transition

South-East Asia is central to the green transition. While the region is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, it is also home to fast-growing economies with ambitious decarbonisation goals and rising energy demand. Meeting these goals requires an estimated $210 billion of investment each year in climate-resilient infrastructure – far beyond what public finance alone can provide.

To help address this gap, we committed $60 million to the Green Investment Partnership (GIP), a blended finance vehicle managed by Pentagreen Capital. GIP sits within the Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P), launched by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to mobilise public, private and philanthropic capital for climate projects across the region.

The fund secured $510 million at first close, with a further $300 million raised at second close – $150 million of which came from commercial investors. Our investment helps de-risk the fund’s capital structure, making it more attractive to commercial investors and helping crowd in additional private capital.

GIP focuses on sectors critical to decarbonisation and sustainable growth, including renewable energy, battery storage, e-mobility and the circular economy. Its early investments include bioenergy and solar-plus-storage projects that are expected to significantly reduce emissions while supporting more resilient energy systems.

As one of the first investments from our mobilisation facility, this partnership demonstrates how we are working with fund managers and global partners – including HSBC and Temasek – to translate ambition into practical investment solutions. By supporting platforms like GIP, we are helping to unlock larger pools of capital and accelerate the development of scalable climate infrastructure across South-East Asia.

Strengthening food security and sustainable livelihoods in Zambia

Posted on June 3, 2026 by british_international

Our partnership with Zambeef is supporting smallholder farmers, creating jobs and improving access to affordable food through a growing retail network

With around half of Africa’s workforce employed in agriculture, businesses such as Zambeef play a critical role in supporting jobs and strengthening food systems. The company operates across the full value chain, from farming and processing to distribution and retail, producing a wide range of food products including meat, dairy, eggs, stockfeed and flour.

Zambeef sources a significant proportion of its inputs locally, including its cattle and grain, providing a reliable market for more than 100,000 small-scale farmers and agents. Alongside this, it supports farmers by offering services such as advice on improving yields, livestock care, and access to pricing information, helping to strengthen productivity across the wider agricultural ecosystem.

Zambeef used our original 2016 investment to strengthen its balance sheet and expand its operations and distribution network. As a result, the company has doubled wheat production and operates the largest stockfeed, poultry, dairy and farming operation in the country. Zambeef employs over 7,000 people directly and operates nearly 250 retail outlets across all ten Zambian provinces, thereby making affordable and quality animal protein widely available to consumers through a modern retail network, including in areas underserved by other formal retail providers.

Expanding affordable housing finance in India

Posted on June 2, 2026 by british_international

Our investment empowers more people to access credit so they can buy a home

India faces a significant affordable housing shortfall, with an estimated 22 to 30 million affordable homes needed by 2030. Lack of access to credit is a major barrier to home ownership. Many people working in the informal jobs market or in self-employed roles, particularly women, are unable to prove their income through payslips or tax returns. This leaves them unable to access credit and locked into insecure or overcrowded housing.

Shubham Housing Development Finance Company (Shubham) is bridging this lending gap by making home loans available to underserved borrowers. Instead of relying on formal documentation such as payslips, Shubham’s customised scoring model uses data collection, predictive analytics and machine learning to build a picture of each applicant. Roughly 80 per cent of Shubham’s customers are women co-borrowers, while 13 per cent are sole women borrowers.

We first invested $37 million in Shubham in June 2022, followed by a further $10 million in December 2024. Since then, the business has scaled rapidly: its customer base has increased from 33,000 to 80,000 active borrowers. Following a recent partial share sale, we remain a significant minority shareholder, and continue to support Shubham as it expands access to affordable housing finance across India.

Powering up Africa’s electricity networks

Posted on June 2, 2026 by british_international

Through Gridworks, we are building the infrastructure to expand reliable power across African economies

Expanding access to sustainable, affordable and reliable power remains one of Africa’s biggest challenges. Today, more than 600 million people in Africa live without access to electricity. While generation capacity is growing, weak transmission and distribution networks continue to limit access and constrain economic growth.

We launched Gridworks in 2019 to address this gap. It focuses on the often-overlooked infrastructure that connects and strengthens electricity systems. Its approach combines long-term capital with technical expertise, working in partnership with governments, development finance institutions and private institutions to develop projects that can attract wider funding.

In 2025, Gridworks-backed projects reached important milestones across several markets.

In Burundi, where just 12 per cent of the population has access to electricity, the Upper Ruvyironza hydropower plant became operational in April 2025. The 1.65MW facility was completed by Anzana Electric Group, a Gridworks portfolio company. The plant now supplies 10GWh of clean, baseload electricity to the national grid. Alongside this, Anzana raised debt funding from the Trade and Development Bank Group for both this project and the 9MW Upper Mulembwe hydropower plant, expected to start supplying power to Burundi’s grid in 2027. When both are operational, they should increase Burundi’s generation capacity by around 10 per cent and expand electricity access to more than 100,000 households.

Gridworks also progressed work on larger-scale transmission infrastructure. In Mozambique, development continued on a 460km transmission line linking central and northern regions. And in South Africa, Gridworks is part of the Pulse Infrastructure consortium selected for the prequalification phase of the country’s first Independent Transmission Programme, aimed at delivering thousands of kilometres of new transmission lines to support renewable energy expansion. More recently, Gridworks reached financial close on the Amari Power Transmission Project in Uganda, the first independent transmission project in Africa to reach this milestone. The project will upgrade the transforming capacity of four high-voltage substations at key locations on the country’s national grid.

Together, these developments show how Gridworks is helping to build stronger electricity systems – through both individual projects and platforms that attract investment, reduce risk and support long-term market development.

Building a cashless network across Africa

Posted on June 2, 2026 by british_international

Our investment helps low-income populations – often excluded from traditional banking – to access digital financial services

Using payment technology to help make financial services accessible, and affordable, is considered crucial for fostering Africa’s inclusive economic growth, particularly in frontier markets, such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. One proven model is the introduction of ‘mobile money’ – applications that let people send, receive and store money through their mobile device. Mobile money services most help underserved, low-income customers who struggle to access a traditional bank account but need a convenient and efficient way to make cash transfers and pay bills.

In June 2025, we committed £23.8 million to Wave Mobile Money (‘Wave’), Africa’s fastest-growing mobile money platform. Wave’s ambition is to make affordable, user-centric financial services accessible to everyone. Wave is operating across eight markets, mostly across West Africa.

Crucially, Wave offers the region’s only platform that works across different mobile networks and providers. It has 20 million monthly active users through a network of 150,000 agents and more than 3,000 employees. The company’s mobile-first model, built on low fees, user-friendly design and around-the-clock customer support, has transformed the financial experience for users who have historically been excluded from formal banking operations. Our investment will help Wave to continue its growth in both existing and new markets, expanding access to mobile money and payment services to underserved communities.

Supporting Ethiopia’s digital transformation

Posted on June 2, 2026 by british_international

Our investment in Safaricom has opened up access to faster, more affordable connectivity for millions of people

Ethiopia is home to more than 112 million people, yet until recently its telecoms industry was managed by a single state-owned operator and access to affordable, high-quality connectivity was limited.

In 2021, the Ethiopian Government began opening the telecoms sector to competition. Safaricom Ethiopia, which was founded with investment from a consortium that included BII, was awarded the country’s first mobile network licence.

Since then, Safaricom Ethiopia has rapidly scaled its operations, building over 3,500 network towers and connecting around 13 million people to digital services. Its entry into the market has helped drive wider change: competition has reduced mobile data prices, improved network quality and accelerated the rollout of 4G coverage across the country.

These market-wide effects go beyond the direct impact of a single investment. Safaricom Ethiopia has encouraged further investment and reform across the sector – expanding access to fairer prices and better services for millions of people across Ethiopia.

Helping India achieve its energy transition goals

Posted on June 2, 2026 by british_international

Our financing helped deliver multiple renewable energy projects that cut emissions while boosting business growth

India is the world’s third-largest producer and user of electricity. Its commercial and industrial sector, which includes cement, metals, pharmaceuticals and textiles, uses about half of the country’s power and plays a major role in economic growth. Cutting emissions in this sector is vital to India’s energy transition and climate targets.

In 2021, we supported Fourth Partner Energy, a leading provider of renewable power solutions for commercial and industrial clients, with financing to support the construction of 217MW of renewable energy projects in India. We made a follow-on investment in 2022, to support a further 295MW of renewable capacity across India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam. These projects were projected to avoid nearly 326,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, mostly in India. By providing mezzanine finance at a critical stage, we enabled Fourth Partner Energy to scale its open access model, attract additional institutional capital, and expand from distributed solar into larger-scale renewable projects.

Since then, Fourth Partner Energy has connected commercial and industrial businesses to cheaper, more reliable renewable power. This has not only reduced emissions, but also driven productivity gains for its clients, demonstrating that the energy transition can support, rather than constrain, economic growth. In 2025, we published an independent evaluation by Itad and Steward Redqueen, which found that Fourth Partner Energy’s customers gained about $344 million in extra value each year, as a result of switching to lower-cost renewable energy, equivalent to around 3 per cent of their total annual output. It also estimated that the switch to renewable power helped avoid about 3.23 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

Boosting high speed EV infrastructure across India

Posted on June 2, 2026 by british_international

Our investment is helping expand reliable charging infrastructure, accelerating the shift to electric vehicles

The transport sector is India’s third-largest source of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, with road transport accounting for the majority. As India works towards its target of net-zero emissions by 2070, electric vehicles (EVs) replacing conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles on India’s roads is critical. However, one of the challenges impeding widespread adoption of EVs in India is the lack of reliable, accessible charging infrastructure.

ChargeZone is one of India’s fastest-growing EV charging network operators. It develops and operates open access EV charging hubs which can be used by any type of vehicle, including buses, trucks, cars and taxi fleets. ChargeZone hubs are powered by its own tech platform which offers users real-time monitoring, app-based access and advanced safety features. The service is particularly cost-effective for businesses that lack the upfront capital needed to set up their own EV hubs.

In 2024, we invested $19 million to support ChargeZone’s expansion across key cities and major transport corridors in India. This financing will help to support the rollout of more than 1,500 super-charging stations, towards a total of 10,000 charging stations by 2027. The company is already progressing towards that goal: in 2025, ChargeZone opened India’s largest EV charging hub in Bengaluru, with capacity to charge more than 200 vehicles at once.

Backing South Africa’s largest solar project

Posted on June 2, 2026 by british_international

Our investment helped improve economic security and support women’s employment

South Africa is the world’s 12th largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, and its coal-dependent power sector has faced significant challenges. Frequent planned power outages, known as load shedding, routinely disrupt daily life and reduce productivity for businesses.

In 2022, we committed $135 million senior debt and $26 million mezzanine financing to help construct South Africa’s first major battery energy storage and photovoltaic solar project, in the Northern Cape Province town of Kenhardt. We stepped in when commercial capital was scarce, and our investment supported H1 Holdings to move the project forward.

Construction began in 2023 and our monitoring revealed a high number of women in the workforce. Women were praised for their quality of work, reliability and contributions to a positive workplace culture. More broadly, their inclusion helped increase local household incomes and shift perceptions of women’s participation in the construction industry.

Kenhardt came online in December 2023. Today, it provides stable, clean electricity for more than 16 hours a day, powering thousands of homes and businesses, thanks to its blend of solar power and battery storage. It avoids 900,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually, and strengthens South Africa’s grid reliability. In September 2025, we successfully exited our mezzanine funding through a refinancing led by Standard Bank, enabling us to recycle capital into new investments supporting the transition to net zero.