Scaling Private Finance for Adaptation and Resilience in Africa

Overview

This session speaks directly to ACS 2025’s Adaptation and Resilience and Financing themes and seeks to get more nuanced about, not just the adaptation needs facing the Continent, but the challenges of injecting mass capital – and especially private capital – into the resilient climate infrastructure that protects Africa’s most vulnerable communities from the increasingly severe impacts of climate change. This event will push participants to think beyond a traditional discourse – that adaptation is the ‘job’ of the public sector and donor financing – and show that there is both need and opportunity to unlock private capital, particularly that patient, long-term domestic institutional funding.

This event will also explore issues around the high costs of capital, difficulties in progressing project preparation of high-impact projects, the need to structure innovative financing mechanisms, and the data, regulatory and policy requirements needed specifically for adaptation & resilience investments. The event will highlight existing initiatives from speakers, demonstrate the market-building that must support catalytic transactions, and showcase FCDO and FSD Africa’s commitment to mobliise new voices to deliver on ACS and Africa’s climate action agenda. This session will be targeted at senior policymakers, business leaders, financial services executives, think-tanks and development partners supporting climate financing, financial market development and adaptaiton & resilience. Through a series of interactive panels, audience Q&A, and high-level speakers, deep insights will be formed, contributions will be made that complement the ACS2 Flagship Report, and a ‘call to action’ will be made.

Read full concept note

Meet the Speakers

H.E Dr William Samoei Ruto

President of the Republic of Kenya

Baroness Chapman

Minister for Development, UK Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

Mark Napier

CEO, FSD Africa

Philippe Valahu

CEO, Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG)

Victoria Miles

Founding Partner, ImpactA

Emeka Akwiwu

Group Executive Director, Continental Re

Rachel Moré-Oshodi

CEO, ARM Harith

Rosalind Gichuru

Group Director Marketing & Communications, Kenyan Commercial Bank (KCB)

Clarisa De Franco

Senior Advisor, Allied Climate Partners (ACP)

Leslie Maasdorp

CEO, British International Investment (BII)

Saif Malik

CEO, UK and Head, Client Coverage, UK, Standard Chartered (SC)

Hannah Gore-Randall

Managing Director of Alternative Finance, Legal & General (L&G)

Chinua Azubike

Managing Director and CEO, InfraCredit

Chris Olobo

Managing Director and CEO, Dhamana

Mike Hugman

Global Director, Climate, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF)

Jess Ayers

CEO, Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF)

Alexia Latortue

Special Advisor, Trade and Development Bank (TDB)

Objectives

The primary objective of this event is to set an ambition for far greater private capital – both domestic and international – to be intentionally devoted to projects, instruments and vehicles that promote African climate adaptation and resilience. Audience members will here from senior executives currently setting ambitions within their own organisations, and who are catalytic in their thinking. We suggest five areas of exploration (aligned with the above) to raise with panellists that have the sub-objectives of:

Crystalising the most important challenges the development finance community faces in supporting impact-focused projects (that deliver both climate resilience outcomes and risk-adjusted economic returns) at scale.
Establishing a common ambition around ‘adaptation & resilience financing’, including by defining the roles of different ‘types’ of institutions from across the continuum of capital providers (e.g. philanthropic, concessional, commercial, insurance, guarantors etc.) as needed.
Providing a clear call to action for interested participants to engage with this group in the lead up to, and beyond COP30.

September 10, 2025