The Last Mile Fund Viability Report by Sustainable Finance Coalition
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The Missing Middle Could Be Nature Finance’s Biggest Opportunity 🌿
Africa is not short of innovative nature finance ideas. Across the continent, biodiversity credits, conservation enterprises, carbon projects and blended finance structures are proving that new models for funding nature are possible. The problem is what happens after the pilot phase. Many promising initiatives find themselves stuck between grant funding and traditional investment capital, too mature for one, but not yet investment-ready for the other. That financing gap is increasingly becoming one of the biggest barriers to scaling nature-positive solutions.
This report explores a potential solution through The Last Mile Fund, a catalytic investment vehicle designed to provide the final tranche of patient and flexible capital needed to move viable nature finance solutions from proof of concept to implementation and scale. Rather than funding conservation activities directly, the fund would focus on financing the mechanisms, enterprises and financial structures that unlock sustainable flows of capital into nature.
What makes the concept particularly interesting is its emphasis on catalytic capital. The report argues that relatively modest investments, deployed at the right stage, can create leverage far beyond their initial value by unlocking additional public, private and philanthropic funding. The proposed structure includes a pooled capital model that can blend philanthropic, concessional and impact investment capital, with the flexibility to deploy instruments ranging from recoverable grants and concessional debt to revenue-based financing and equity.
The viability assessment also highlights eight critical building blocks for success, including access to catalytic capital, a credible investment pipeline, strong governance, a clearly articulated impact thesis and alignment with global best practice. Importantly, the report places equal emphasis on environmental outcomes, community benefits and financial sustainability, recognising that successful nature finance must deliver across all three dimensions. For the nature finance sector, the implications are significant. If successful, the model could help bridge one of the most persistent challenges in conservation finance by enabling projects that have already demonstrated potential to reach the scale needed to attract larger pools of institutional capital. In many ways, it resembles the role venture capital plays in technology, providing just enough support to get promising ideas over the line and into the mainstream.
The report’s conclusion is optimistic: a dedicated catalytic fund focused on the “missing middle” is both viable and necessary. With seed capital already secured and implementation underway, the next phase will test whether this approach can accelerate the growth of Africa’s broader nature finance ecosystem.
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