TDB Green+ Class C Shares: Catalyzing Climate Finance in Africa

Afghanistan’s mineral wealth could become the foundation of long-term national prosperity, but only if institutional design turns geological assets into credible economic systems.

National Opportunity
A major untapped endowment of copper, iron ore, lithium, rare earths, and gold.

Structural Challenge
Weak institutional architecture has prevented mineral wealth from becoming durable prosperity.

Financing Pathway
Transparent licensing, sovereign revenue stewardship, and infrastructure-led development.

Afghanistan’s mineral endowment could become the basis of a new national development model, but only if licensing, sovereign revenue stewardship, and infrastructure are designed to turn buried assets into durable prosperity.

The future of Afghanistan may depend less on the minerals beneath its soil than on the quality of the institutions, structures, and ambitions built above it.

Preeti Sinha

The Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB) is pioneering a new frontier in sustainable finance with the introduction of its Green+ Class C shares. Launched in 2022 at the COP27 summit, the TDB Green+ Class C Shares are gaining ground as a groundbreaking equity instrument designed to channel capital into climate action projects across Africa. The African Development Bank (AfDB) became the first investor, committing $15 million to the initiative, signaling a strong endorsement of TDB’s innovative approach.

In 2024, a further equity investment of USD 15 million in TDB\’s pioneering Class C Green+ shares to support clean technology and low carbon projects in its member states was sourced from the Clean Technology Fund (CTF), which will also support the establishment of a project preparation facility to boost investment in clean technologies. The CTF, part of the Climate Investment Funds, provides resources to developing countries to scale up low-carbon technologies with significant potential for long-term greenhouse gas emissions savings.

TDB Green+ Class C Shares: Structure and Purpose

The Green+ Class C shares are thematically aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. They enable TDB to leverage each dollar invested up to four times, funneling capital into both public and private sector projects that are climate and SDG-aligned. This leveraging effect is pivotal, amplifying the impact of each investment by multiplying the financial resources available for qualifying projects.

TDB\\\’s innovative approach builds on the success of its previous Class B shares, which were designed to attract institutional investors such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. The Green+ Class C shares, however, go a step further by focusing specifically on climate finance, making them an attractive option for impact investors looking to contribute to Africa’s green growth.

While these shares do not come with direct voting rights, Green+ Class C shareholders receive senior priority over Classes A and B in the event of a liquidation.

TDB Green+ Class C Shares: Financial Impact

The introduction of the Green+ Class C shares is expected to significantly bolster TDB’s capital position, enabling it to scale up its impact across its 25 member states. The bank’s capital structure has already been diversified over the past decade, allowing TDB to mobilize debt capital on increasingly favorable terms and achieve investment-grade ratings. The new shares are senior in nature, offering shareholders annual dividends similar to those of Class B shares, while also contributing to long-term climate resilience and sustainable development in the region.

TDB Green+ Class C Shares: Strategic Partnerships and Future Prospects

To address the challenge of insufficient bankable green projects, TDB has established a Project Preparation Facility in collaboration with FSD Africa. This facility aims to provide the necessary technical assistance to bring more projects to financial closure, thereby ensuring a steady stream of opportunities for investment through the Green+ Class C shares.

Looking ahead, TDB’s Green+ Class C shares are poised to become a model for other financial institutions aiming to align their investment strategies with global climate goals. By optimizing the use of concessional funding and leveraging private sector resources, TDB is setting a precedent for how innovative financial instruments can drive sustainable development in Africa.

Conclusion

The launch of Green+ Class C shares marks a significant milestone for TDB and the broader African financial landscape. As TDB continues to mobilize capital for climate action, these shares offer a unique opportunity for investors to earn competitive returns while contributing to the continent’s sustainable development goals.

Newswire:

For more detailed financial data and annual reports on TDB’s performance and impact, visit their official site.

TDB CLASS C GREEN+ SHARES LAUNCHED AT COP27, WITH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK BEING FIRST INVESTOR TO COMMIT

Afghanistan’s Mineral Future: From Buried Wealth to National Architecture

For much of the modern era, Afghanistan has been interpreted through the language of conflict, fragility, and geopolitics. Yet beneath that familiar narrative lies a different national reality: one of the most underdeveloped mineral endowments in the world.

Its mountains and terrain are believed to hold significant deposits of copper, iron ore, lithium, rare earth elements, gold, and other strategic minerals. At a time when electrification, battery storage, and industrial supply-chain security are becoming central to the global economy, these resources are no longer peripheral. They sit close to the heart of the next industrial era.

But Afghanistan’s mineral story is not fundamentally about geology.

It is about whether a nation can build the institutional, financial, and infrastructural architecture required to transform buried wealth into enduring prosperity.

Natural resources on their own do not create development. In many countries, they have produced volatility, elite capture, fiscal distortion, and missed national potential. Where resource wealth has been translated into long-term strength, success has rarely come from extraction alone. It has come from design.

Three foundations matter.

The first is a transparent and credible licensing regime. Without it, capital remains short-term, speculative, or politically distorted. With it, a country can begin to attract serious long-horizon partners while protecting national interest and public legitimacy.

The second is sovereign revenue architecture. Resource wealth must be governed through institutions capable of channeling proceeds into infrastructure, education, productive systems, and long-term national reserves rather than immediate fiscal depletion. A country that extracts without stewarding simply liquidates its future.

The third is physical economic infrastructure. Mineral deposits become economically meaningful only when they are connected to power, transport, logistics, processing capacity, and regional trade routes. Without these systems, resource wealth remains stranded beneath the ground, technically valuable but nationally unrealized.

Afghanistan’s challenge has not been the absence of assets. It has been the absence of the systems required to convert those assets into broad-based development.

Yet this is precisely why the opportunity remains so large.

Because the sector is still underdeveloped, Afghanistan is not locked into a mature but failing model. It still has the possibility of first-principles design. A serious mineral strategy could serve as the anchor of a wider national blueprint, linking extraction to infrastructure investment, domestic industrial formation, and regional transport corridors connecting Central and South Asia.

This is where the question becomes larger than mining.

The deeper issue is whether Afghanistan can create a credible economic architecture above the mineral base: institutions that inspire trust, capital structures that support long-term development, and national systems that ensure resource wealth strengthens the country rather than fragments it.

Afghanistan’s mineral endowment should not be understood merely as a buried stock of commodities. It should be understood as a strategic national platform, one that could help finance infrastructure, expand industrial capacity, deepen regional integration, and reshape the economic horizon of the country.

The future of Afghanistan may depend less on the minerals beneath its soil than on the quality of the institutions, structures, and ambitions built above it.

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