FSD Africa: Financing Africa’s Resilient Future
- World Climate Foundation
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
For Africa, the climate transition is inseparable from a wider economic challenge: creating opportunity for millions of people entering the workforce.
At the World Climate Investment Summit 2026 in London, Mark Napier, CEO of FSD Africa, shared his perspective on why stronger domestic financial systems are essential to building resilient economies. From mobilising capital to connecting policymakers, investors and enterprises, Mark argues that finance must evolve to meet Africa’s development and climate priorities together.
Watch the full interview below:
Here are the key takeaways from the conversation with Mark Napier.
1. Putting jobs and economic opportunity at the heart of the transition
Drawing on his experience living and working in Nairobi, Kenya, Mark highlights the urgent need to grow African economies fast enough to create opportunities for expanding workforces.
Achieving this will require financial systems capable of supporting the industries and enterprises that will shape the economies of the future. For Mark, strengthening domestic financial capacity is therefore not a secondary consideration — it is a critical foundation for inclusive growth and long-term resilience.
Well-functioning local financial markets can help channel capital towards productive businesses, emerging sectors and climate-aligned projects. In doing so, they can support economic transformation while creating livelihoods and opportunity at scale.
2. Building a financing ecosystem that works
Capital alone is not enough. A successful financing ecosystem depends on many actors working together — from policymakers and asset managers to microfinance institutions and the projects seeking investment.
“We need policymakers talking to asset managers, talking to microfinanciers, talking to projects that need the money too,” Mark explains.
Bringing these actors together can be complex and politically sensitive. It requires trusted facilitators, shared priorities and an understanding of the different roles each participant plays. Organisations such as FSD Africa can help bridge these divides, strengthen coordination and turn promising ideas into viable investment opportunities.
3. Connecting climate action with development
Mark also challenges leaders to move beyond treating climate as a separate or abstract concern.
Climate change will influence how economies grow, where investment flows and which industries remain competitive. It is therefore intrinsic to Africa’s future development—not an agenda that can be pursued in isolation from social and economic priorities.
This means breaking down the barriers between climate, development and economic policy. Approached together, these priorities can reinforce one another: climate investment can support job creation, stronger markets and more resilient communities, while economic development can expand the capacity needed to deliver the transition.
Mark’s call to leaders is to frame climate action in terms that reflect people’s immediate priorities and lived realities.
For those who remain skeptical, the task is not simply to repeat the case for climate action. It is to demonstrate how the transition can contribute to employment, investment and economic resilience—and to design solutions that deliver these outcomes together.
By building stronger financial systems and connecting the institutions that shape them, Africa can turn climate ambition into broad-based economic opportunity.
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