MIGA to Support Over 100 Energy Projects in up to 20 African Countries
WASHINGTON, July 14, 2025 – The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), home of the World Bank Group Guarantee Platform, executed framework terms of $495 million with CrossBoundary Energy Holdings (CBE) of Mauritius for its investments in distributed renewable energy projects in Africa, potentially spanning up to 20 countries. Under the framework terms, MIGA has issued an initial set of guarantees to CBE. The guarantee covers currency inconvertibility and transfer restriction risks for up to 15 years.
The guarantees will be implemented through a portfolio-based structure, which will streamline guarantee issuance for individual projects. This approach will help CBE to expand its operations across approximately 100 projects, including in 11 IDA countries and 4 fragile or conflict-affected countries. The distributed renewable energy projects will enhance electricity reliability and quality and reduce energy supply costs for businesses. These solutions increase the resilience and competitiveness of local businesses, supporting industrial productivity and enabling job creation.
“This innovative portfolio-based approach demonstrates how MIGA is making it faster and easier for investors like CrossBoundary Energy to expand across multiple African markets,” said Hiroshi Matano, Executive Vice President of MIGA. “By streamlining the guarantee process, we are helping unlock renewable energy investments at scale—particularly in underserved and fragile markets—while supporting job creation, economic resilience, and sustainable growth across the continent.”
MIGA will leverage a first loss risk sharing of up to $61.5 million from the IDA Private Sector Window-MIGA Guarantee Facility, which will be applied across individual guarantees for IDA-eligible countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Mali, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia.
MIGA will also leverage the Renewable Energy Catalyst Trust Fund for a first loss risk participation of up to $37.6 million, to be applied across individual guarantees for non-IDA-eligible countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Eswatini, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa.
Aggregation of projects to enable investment and de-risking is a central theme for both the distributed renewable energy (DRE) sector and MIGA’s Mission 300 strategy. What stands out in this transaction is the powerful combination of CBE’s corporate-level project aggregation, bringing together a portfolio of multiple C&I projects under a single platform, and MIGA’s portfolio-based guarantee structure. Together, these features unlock access to long-term commercial bank financing for distributed energy companies, which have historically struggled to scale due to fragmented investments and complex risk profiles.
“Affordable and reliable power supply remains one of the primary constraints on the growth and productivity of African businesses, and CrossBoundary Energy’s model provides reliable, distributed, and bespoke power solutions that solve this challenge,” said Matthew Tilleard, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at CrossBoundary Group. “MIGA’s support at a portfolio level will allow us to expand our provision of these power solutions across Africa and support our clients in markets that might otherwise be underserved.”
CBE has had challenges in obtaining systematic political risk insurance due to its large portfolio of investments across Africa. The traditional investment-by-investment approach is costly and administratively burdensome, limiting the ability to efficiently mitigate transfer and currency inconvertibility risk across a broad portfolio. CBE and MIGA have worked together to develop a portfolio-based approach that allows MIGA to provide currency inconvertibility and transfer restriction risk coverage more efficiently and uniformly. This allows CBE to de-risk its entire investment portfolio, aligning with lender (such as the Standard Bank Group) and investor expectations, allowing additional private capital mobilization while enhancing financial resilience across African markets. The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited was appointed to lead and arrange up to $300 million senior debt to support the scaling of CrossBoundary Energy’s renewable energy portfolio serving Commercial and Industrial (C&I) clients across Africa.
"There is a growing need for innovative energy solutions in Africa. Visionary partners like CrossBoundary Energy are addressing this challenge holistically through energy systems that are financed, distributed, and led by renewables,” said Jeanne-Marie Fatti, Senior Vice President: Energy & Infrastructure at Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking. “Standard Bank is thus committed to supporting pioneers like CrossBoundary Energy on their growth trajectory.”
Reliable electricity remains a critical barrier for C&I firms across Sub‑Saharan Africa. According to recent reports, 75% of firms experience power outages, happening on average 8 times per month for more than 5 hours. On average, firms lose 5–8% of annual sales due to unreliable power, with some losing over 10%—and in extreme cases up to 31% of annual sales. Over 52% of Sub-Saharan African manufacturers already own, or share, a diesel generator due to the poor service they’ve been provided by energy utilities. In 2024 alone, almost 6 GW of captive C&I projects and 1.7 GW of wheeling projects were newly announced.
CBE solutions provide reliable and cost-effective power to commercial and industrial companies, enhancing their operational efficiency. This improvement not only facilitates job creation but also stimulates economic growth in the regions where these companies are situated.
About CrossBoundary Energy (CBE)
CrossBoundary Energy (CBE), established in 2015 by CrossBoundary Group and incorporated in Mauritius, is a prominent company focused on Africa, specializing in the ownership, development, financing, and operation of renewable energy systems for commercial and industrial clients. CBE provides distributed renewable energy solutions through an innovative energy-as-a-service model, offering comprehensive systems that integrate solar photovoltaic, wind, battery energy storage systems, and auxiliary diesel/heavy fuel oil (HFO) generators where necessary. CBE has invested over $153 million in 36 renewable energy projects totaling 100 MW. As of June 2025, its awarded portfolio spans $707 million, encompassing 560 MW of solar, wind, and hybrid capacity and over 695 MWh of storage across 20 African countries. CBE operates in 22 countries and serves a diverse range of blue-chip clients in sectors such as mining, telecommunications, and heavy industry.
About Standard Bank Group
Standard Bank Group is the largest African bank by assets, operating in 20 African countries, 4 global financial centers and 2 offshore hubs. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, we are listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, with share code SBK, and the Namibian Stock Exchange, share code SNB.
Standard Bank has a 162-year history in South Africa and started building a franchise outside southern Africa in the early 1990s. Our strategic position, which enables us to connect Africa to other select emerging markets as well as pools of capital in developed markets, and our balanced portfolio of businesses, provides significant opportunities for growth.
As of 31 December 2024, Standard Bank Group had 20 million clients, employed over 50 000 people (including Liberty) and had over 1 150 points of representation and 5 500 ATMs across the African continent. The group’s largest shareholder is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest bank, with a 19.6% shareholding. In addition, Standard Bank Group and ICBC share a strategic partnership that facilitates trade and deal flow between Africa, China and select emerging markets.
For further information, go to http://www.standardbank.com
About the World Bank Group Guarantee Platform
Initiated in 2024, the World Bank Group Guarantee Platform consolidates guarantee products and experts from across the World Bank Group at MIGA. It provides a simplified and comprehensive menu of guarantee solutions, enabling clients to select the instrument that best suits their needs. The platform streamlines processes, removes redundancies, and provides greater accessibility by de-risking investments in developing countries. Its goal is to boost the World Bank Group’s annual guarantee issuance to $20 billion by 2030. For more information about the guarantee platform, please visit: https://www.worldbank.org/wbgguarantees. Stay updated and follow us at https://x.com/MIGA and https://www.linkedin.com/company/wb-miga
Contact:
In Washington: Subhash Ghimire, (646) 894-1030 or sghimire1@worldbank.org