Latest Recipients of CGEF Grants are Two Africa-Based, Women-Led Fund Managers

(clockwise from left:) Lisa Thomas and Lelemba Phiri PhD, co-founders of ATG Samata, Nyeji Chilembo-Mhango, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of wCap, Yvonne Chalwe Mpala, General Partner, wCap.

Two Africa-based, women-led fund managers have received grants totalling USD$1 million from the USAID Climate Gender Equity Fund (CGEF), completing the cohort of awardees under the first round of grants.

CGEF is a joint public-private partnership between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and founding members Amazon, Reckitt, The UPS Foundation and Visa Foundation, aimed at increasing climate finance for gender-responsive, women-led, and women-benefiting organisations. Grant-making under CGEF is managed by 2X Global.

ATG Samata and wCap were today announced as the latest CGEF grant awardees during a side event hosted by USAID and Amazon held in New York City during CSW68, the United Nations’ 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

ATG Samata is a women-led fund, co-founded by Lelemba Phiri PhD and Lisa Thomas, focused on key markets in sub-Saharan Africa with an emphasis on Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique and Zambia.

Their fund is a gender-lens venture fund targeting early stage, scalable businesses in emerging markets. Their approach focuses on investing in outstanding female-led and gender-diverse teams that are operating in high growth industry segments with a significant representation of women within the value chain. 

Over 50% of their current portfolio intersects climate and gender. Support from CGEF will enable continued focus on women-led and women benefiting climate solutions.  For example, ATG Samata has invested in Solar Taxi, an electric vehicle company in Ghana that has more than 50% female employees and seeks to scale solutions that reduce carbon emissions. 

wCap is co-founded and led by Nyeji Chilembo-Mhango and is the only woman-owned venture capital firm in Zambia. It is focused on bridging the funding gap for early stage, high growth women-led businesses offering climate solutions in selected countries in Southern Africa.

In 2022, wCap established a gender lens climate-focused funding mechanism to increase the volume of climate finance that flows into women-led businesses in the region.

This brings the total awarded thus far under CGEF to USD $1.9 million, following the announcement in December 2023 at COP 28 of the first three grant awardees - M-Kyala Ventures, The Clean Technology Hub, and WomHub - women-led network organisations supporting gender-smart climate solutions.

The first CGEF funding round focused on reaching climate- and gender-smart fund managers and entrepreneur networks aiming to unlock capital for long-term and systemic change at the nexus of gender and climate finance across developing markets.

Applications will be opened for the second round of grants under CGEF in April 2024.