FSD Africa is a specialist development agency working to make finance work for Africa’s future. Set up in 2012, we work on policy and regulatory reform, capacity strengthening and improving financial infrastructure, and addressing systemic challenges in financial markets to spark large-scale and long-term change.
Additionally, we provide risk capital by investing in cutting-edge ideas that we believe have the potential for significant impact. We take on projects that are more complex and riskier than those taken on by typical development finance firms, to unlock additional funding for innovative sectors.
Over the past decade, we’ve seen that investing in financial markets drives economic growth, boosts the income of vulnerable groups and helps to reduce poverty. Through our market-building initiatives, we have directly and indirectly crowded in around £1.9 billion in long-term capital, availing finance for SMEs, affordable housing and sustainable energy projects.
Our work has also enabled development of innovative products, increasing access to financial services for close to 12 million people in Africa. This improved access has been particularly beneficial during the Covid-19 crisis. Between 2020 and 2021, we saw an 87% increase in the use of remittance services to cushion families from the economic effects of the pandemic.
Our programmes have also supported business growth, increasing access to jobs for vulnerable groups such as women. To date, we have created or sustained approximately 67,200 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs, of which 12% were green jobs and 59% were occupied by women.
Results against five-year targets
The figure below shows our cumulative results against the five-year targets for each of our core indicators.
