Good With Money readers can target returns of eight per cent while backing cleaner cooking and renewable electricity projects across Africa, with an exclusive guarantee covering half of their first investment up to £1,000.
Paid partnership with Energise Africa
Imagine knowing your money is helping to fund cleaner cookstoves and solar mini-grids in Africa, with a measurable impact on families, businesses and communities.
That’s the idea behind Energise Africa, a UK impact investing platform that connects investors directly with clean energy businesses working across sub-Saharan Africa.
Its current opportunities include a Kenyan business replacing charcoal and firewood with cleaner cookstoves and sustainable fuel, and a long-established Nigerian engineering company building solar mini-grids for communities without reliable electricity.
Both bonds are targeting an expected return of eight per cent a year over 24 months.
Now Good With Money readers have an extra incentive to take a closer look. The first 200 new investors who register using the code GOODWITHMONEY26 can have 50 per cent of their first investment guaranteed, up to £500 on an investment of £1,000.
Your capital remains at risk and the guarantee does not cover the whole investment or any expected interest. We explain how it works, along with the risks to consider, below.
The Good With Money reader offer
Register for a new Energise Africa account using the code GOODWITHMONEY26 and 50 per cent of your first investment will be guaranteed to be repaid, up to a maximum of £500.
That means:
- Invest £500 and up to £250 of your capital is guaranteed.
- Invest £1,000 and up to £500 is guaranteed.
- Invest more than £1,000 and the maximum guarantee remains £500.
The guarantee applies to capital only and does not cover interest or other expected returns. It applies solely to your first investment, so any unused amount cannot be carried over to a later project.
The offer is available to the first 200 eligible new investors who register using the code, which is valid for three months. Energise Africa will confirm whether you qualify by email within 48 hours of registration.
The guarantee is provided by Energise Africa and is separate from Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection.
What is Energise Africa?
Energise Africa was launched in 2017 to give UK investors a direct route to help fund businesses expanding access to affordable, cleaner energy across Africa.
Rather than putting your money into a broad sustainable investment fund, you choose a bond issued by a particular company. You can see which business you are supporting, how it intends to use the money and the social and environmental impact the project is expected to achieve.
You lend money to the company for an agreed period in return for a targeted rate of interest. Investments start from £50, making it possible to spread smaller amounts between projects rather than putting all your money into one business.
Eligible bonds can also be held within an Innovative Finance ISA, or IFISA. This means any returns can be received free of UK income and capital gains tax, subject to your personal circumstances and annual ISA allowance.
Energise Africa says more than £48 million has been raised through its platform for over 250 projects. Its figures, updated in December 2025, estimate that investors have helped more than 1.1 million people benefit from renewable energy and prevented more than 734,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.
Investors can also view a personalised impact report showing where their money has been deployed and the impact attributed to their investments.
EcoSafi: cleaner cooking with lower fuel costs
One of the live opportunities at the time of writing is the EcoSafi Issue 2 bond, which is targeting an expected annual return of eight per cent over 24 months. The minimum investment is £50.
The Kenyan clean-cooking company aims to raise £300,000 to manufacture and distribute 4,932 high-efficiency cookstoves, along with sustainable biomass pellets made from agricultural waste.
Millions of families in Kenya still cook using charcoal, firewood and other traditional fuels. These can be expensive for households, contribute to deforestation and fill homes with harmful smoke.
EcoSafi offers families its cookstove without an upfront charge. Customers then pay for the locally made pellets used to fuel it, which the company says cost between 40 and 70 per cent less than charcoal or liquefied petroleum gas.
The stoves are designed to burn more efficiently and cleanly than traditional charcoal stoves, helping families reduce fuel costs and their exposure to indoor air pollution. Using agricultural waste for the pellets also reduces demand for wood and charcoal.
Energise Africa estimates that the 4,932 cookstoves financed by this bond could:
- save participating households a combined £310,716 over five years
- prevent 37,673 tonnes of carbon emissions over the lifetime of the stoves
- save each household around 61 hours a year.
The bond is part of a wider EcoSafi project that plans to distribute almost 20,000 clean cookstoves in Kenya, supported by investment of more than £1.2 million.
An additional route to repayment
A particularly interesting feature of the EcoSafi bond is how its planned repayment has been structured.
EcoSafi is still growing, distributing stoves, developing its customer base and generating carbon credits. The bond has therefore been designed so that planned repayment does not rely solely on the company reaching commercial break-even during its two-year term.
The intended source of repayment is funding from the Modern Cooking Facility for Africa, known as MCFA. This results-based finance is released when EcoSafi achieves agreed delivery and impact targets that have been verified.
MCFA is a multi-donor clean-cooking programme managed by Nefco, the Nordic Green Bank. It has awarded EcoSafi up to €1.5 million in results-based financing to establish 25,000 sustainable clean-cooking services in Kenya, potentially giving up to 125,000 people access to cleaner cooking by the end of 2028.
The arrangement provides a separate planned source of repayment and reduces the bond’s dependence on EcoSafi’s short-term trading performance. EcoSafi must still deliver the project, satisfy the grant conditions and receive the funding, so the structure reduces some risks rather than removing them.
Maskh: solar power for almost 67,000 people
Another live opportunity at the time of writing is the Maskh Issue 2 bond, also targeting an expected return of eight per cent a year.
Maskh Nigeria is raising £600,000 to help finance the construction and connection of 19 solar mini-grid sites across the states of Bauchi and Jigawa.
These local renewable electricity networks are expected to connect 14,937 households and 1,881 commercial and institutional customers, bringing electricity to 67,216 people.
For families, that can mean reliable lighting, phone charging and the ability to use small household appliances. For local businesses, electricity can power fridges, mills, welding equipment and other tools that support jobs and economic activity. Schools and health facilities are also among the planned connections.
The 19 sites are expected to provide 3,280kWp of installed solar capacity and avoid an estimated 177,664 tonnes of carbon emissions over their 25-year lifetime when compared with diesel generation.
Maskh is a second-generation family business founded in 1991, with more than 30 years of experience delivering infrastructure projects in Nigeria. It already operates 14 mini-grid sites in Bauchi, serving more than 3,000 active customers.
How the Maskh repayment structure works
Maskh has been awarded a results-based financing grant by Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency to construct and operate the 19 new sites.
Repayment of the bond is intended to come from the grant proceeds. The money is released following the verified completion and connection of the mini-grids, tying repayment to delivery of the project rather than customer revenues or wider market conditions during construction.
The bond has an expected term of 24 months, or until the results-based finance grant is repaid if that happens sooner. Maskh has already completed preparatory work on the sites, according to Energise Africa.
As with EcoSafi, the grant-backed structure provides an additional planned route to repayment. Investors are still relying on the company to complete the work, meet the required conditions and receive the grant.
What are the risks?
These investments offer the chance to support clearly defined projects while targeting an attractive return, but they are higher risk than mainstream savings accounts or widely diversified investment funds.
The eight per cent interest rates are expected rather than guaranteed. The bonds are issued by individual businesses, so you could lose some or all of your investment if the company fails or cannot make its repayments.
Your money is also tied up for the term of the bond. Energise Africa does not operate a secondary market, which means you should not assume you will be able to sell the investment or withdraw your capital early.
For an eligible Good With Money reader making a first investment of £1,000, the special guarantee would cover up to £500 of lost capital. The other £500 would remain at risk, along with all expected interest. Anything invested above £1,000 would also fall outside the guarantee.
Holding a bond in an IFISA can protect eligible returns from tax, but it does not protect the investment itself. FSCS and Financial Ombudsman Service protection do not cover poor investment performance.
These investments are intended for people who understand the risks and should only form a limited, diversified part of a portfolio. Never invest money you cannot afford to lose or money you may need during the investment term.
How to claim the exclusive offer
Register for a new Energise Africa account through the Good With Money campaign link and enter GOODWITHMONEY26 during registration.
Energise Africa will email within 48 hours to confirm whether you qualify for the guarantee. Once confirmed, you can browse the available opportunities and read each company’s full offer document before deciding whether to invest.
The offer is available to the first 200 new investors who register using the code and is valid for three months, subject to availability. Questions about the offer can be sent to help@energiseafrica.com.
Investment opportunities can fill or close, so check the Energise Africa website for the projects available when you register.
Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take two minutes to learn more at www.energiseafrica.com/risk-summary.
Approver: Share In Ltd (FRN 603332). Approval date: 21/07/2026
