In 2024, Nithio made significant efforts in advancing energy access and efficiency across Africa, particularly by reaching last mile users and communities. Today, we are able to lend to businesses in 20 markets across Sub-Saharan Africa, widening our footprint in delivering inclusive energy solutions.
Globally, energy demand grew by 2.2% in 2024, faster than the annual average of 1.3% over the last decade, emphasizing the urgent need for scalable renewable solutions, especially in Africa where the energy gap remains wide. In response, we expanded our investment scope to include productive use assets, clean cooking, and e-mobility to align with industry and international trends.
The Facility for Adaptation, Inclusion, and Resilience (FAIR), managed by Nithio, has $47.1 million in Assets Under Management, which enabled the deployment of over 148,000 systems and improved energy access for nearly half a million people. Notably, 38% of these systems were purchased by women, who demonstrated better repayment rates, repaying an average of 90% compared to 84% of their male counterparts. These efforts contributed to avoiding approximately 1.78 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions.
Investments in clean energy have typically prioritized more immediately rewarding opportunities. According to GOGLA’s off-grid solar market trends, nearly 75% of total tracked investment funding has gone to 6 companies with the remaining allocation divided across hundreds of other players. Meanwhile, small and medium enterprises which are critical to reaching last-mile customers remain underfunded. Recognizing this, 64% of the FAIR portfolio supports Tier 2 and Tier 3 borrowers, ensuring capital reaches these high-impact businesses.
Our goal at Nithio is to unlock tailored capital for solutions that build climate resilience. This is demonstrated, for example, by our recent partnership with Altech in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries.
At the center of this is our AI-driven analytics, which informs our investment decisions internally and enables other capital providers and fund managers to make risk-informed investments. We’ve collaborated with leading industry financiers, including IFU, Mirova, and Triple Jump, to support portfolio performance analysis, due diligence processes and other measurements of key impact metrics.
Going forward, we are deepening our understanding of market dynamics especially around credit risk. Using our Risk Analytics Engine and a highly localized database, down to 1 square meter, that blends geospatial, socioeconomic, environmental, and customer data, we aim to unlock smarter, faster, and more sustainable climate finance. By doing so, we seek to reduce transaction costs and time, making it more efficient to deploy capital where it’s needed most. This includes scaling automated lending to reduce transaction costs and time, making it more efficient to deploy capital where it’s needed most, applying a gender lens to data-driven investments to ensure equal access to financing solutions, and expanding high-impact solutions across the continent to increase clean energy access.
These efforts not only contribute to Africa’s sustainable development but also offer valuable insights for global strategies aimed at achieving universal energy access.
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