Our innovative and blended finance solutions - Aqua for All

Catalysing investments in water and sanitation

Impact investments in water and sanitation

Our innovative and blended finance solutions

We use our funds and expertise to broaden the ecosystem of available investments through:

  • Blended finance partnerships
  • Results-based incentives models
  • Financing carbon credits trajectories
  • Promoting impact investments in water and sanitation

 

Our blended finance partnerships

We deploy our funding as patient, risk-tolerant, flexible and concessionary capital to facilitate and de-risk private investments. Our financial instruments include first and second loss capital, guarantees, technical assistance, results-based funding (pay for success) and design/preparation stage grants.

  • In August 2020, we launched a WASH Loan Facility with Sidian Bank. The facility provides working capital to micro, small and medium water and sanitation enterprises in Kenya.
  • In September 2021, we launched a WASH Financing Programme with the National Bank of Kenya (NBK). It is aimed at micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs and SMEs), including vendors, technology providers, and various WASH suppliers.
  • In June 2023, we launched The Challenge Fund with Family Bank, Sidian Bank and private sector service providers,  a pioneering blended finance structure to accelerate access to clean and reliable water supply in peri-urban and rural areas in Kenya.

 

 

Funding results-based incentive models for greater impact

We finance results-based incentives models to scale water and sanitation enterprises and make them investable. These incentives support enterprises  improve their profitability while achieving higher impact (gender, environment and social) and offering better services, especially for people on low incomes and living in rural and last-mile areas.

  • In August 2020, Aqua for All and Roots of Impact launched the Social Impact Incentives for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (SIINC for WASH) programme. After this successful pilot, we continued our partnership by launching the Impact-Linked Fund for WASH (ILF for WASH).

Climate change mitigation through carbon credits finance

Carbon credits certification helps water and sanitation social enterprises generate additional revenue from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions avoided. Since 2013,  Aqua for All has  financed carbon credits trajectories in Ethiopia and India.

 

Facilitating impact investors’ involvement

Impact investors’ capital allocation in water and sanitation has grown in the last years [1]. However, it  is still a relatively new and under-invested sector for private capital with little information available on its  risk/return profile.

In 2020, Aqua for All became a member of the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) as part of its strategy to proactively promote impact investments in water and sanitation.

 

[1] https://thegiin.org/research/publication/impinv-survey-2020

Our experience with carbon credits finance

The paper ‘Mobilising investments for water and sanitation enterprises through carbon credits’  summarises these experiences and the findings of a study on carbon finance opportunities in partnership with FairClimateFund.

World Water Week @Home (August 2020)

We organised a session on innovative finance for scaling effective SDG 6 solutions together with Grand Challenges Canada (GCC), Roots of Impact, Take-a-Stake Fund, Incofin Investment Management, Danone Communities, WASTE/FINISH Mondial and Water.org.

European Microfinance Week 2020

We organised two sessions to showcase our innovative and blended finance partnerships and discuss the knowledge gaps that hold back investments in water and sanitation enterprises.

WASH Action Group

Within the e-MFP, Aqua for All is setting up a WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Action Group  to promote investments and sharing learnings among the European impact investor’s community.