• Impact funds in Africa manage $70-80B; half operate solely on the continent
  
  
• 124 of 250 identified funds invest exclusively in Africa, FERDI data finds
  
  
• South African funds hold 43% of assets, leading regional impact investment
  

Impact investment funds active in Africa manage between 70 billion and 80 billion dollars in assets, and almost half of them operate exclusively on the continent, according to a report released Tuesday by the Foundation for International Development Study and Research (FERDI).

The study, titled Update of the mapping of Africa’s impact investors 2025: Quantifying the African footprint, expands on a first version published in 2024 that had limited visibility on how much capital was actually deployed in Africa and how active each fund truly was on the continent.

The updated dataset identifies 250 funds whose strategies match the core principles of impact investing: seeking financial returns, pursuing measurable social or environmental outcomes, and maintaining teams dedicated to tracking and reporting those impacts.

To determine how much of each fund’s portfolio is invested in Africa, the authors used a two-part method. Eighty-one investors supplied detailed data on their commitments, allowing for an exact calculation of their African exposure. For funds without granular information, the authors relied on publicly available material, including websites and internal publications. This approach found that 114 funds invest entirely on the continent. For the remaining 55 funds, whose African allocation could not be confirmed, the authors tested several scenarios ranging from zero to full exposure, with intermediate assumptions of 20 percent and 40 percent.

Africa-Focused Funds Dominate

Based on these scenarios, impact funds operating in Africa manage between 59 billion dollars and 111 billion dollars in assets, with a central estimate of 70 to 80 billion dollars. The figures broadly align with data from the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), which estimated global impact investment AUM at 1.571 trillion dollars in 2023, of which only six percent, or 94 billion dollars, was allocated to Africa.

The report stresses that these amounts represent assets under management, not annual investment flows. Assuming portfolios turn over every five to seven years, the annual flow into Africa would range from 10 billion dollars to 16 billion dollars. Although significant, this remains below one percent of the continent’s GDP, compared with two to three percent for foreign direct investment or official development assistance.

Even so, the sector is becoming more established. Of the 195 funds for which Africa-specific portfolio data is available, 124 invest exclusively on the continent. Even in the most conservative scenario, nearly half of all identified impact funds operate only in Africa.

The study identifies 46 countries as fund domiciles, including 32 African nations. Africa-based funds account for almost 40 percent of all vehicles in the sample and manage close to 60 percent of the continent’s impact investment assets.

By country of origin, the United States represents more than one-fifth of all funds, followed by South Africa and the Netherlands at roughly 10 percent each. In terms of assets under management, South African funds are the most influential, holding 43 percent of all impact investment assets deployed in Africa. This dominance stems from the fact that nearly all 27 South African funds operate solely on the continent and rank among the largest in the dataset.

Walid Kéfi