KIFFWA

The Kenya Innovative Finance Facility for Water (KIFFWA) is an investment fund with a Foundation based in the Netherlands and a Fund Management Company in Kenya. NWP hosts the Secretariat of the KIFFWA Foundation Board with funding and support from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Nairobi, Kenya.

KIFFWA is a co-developer of water-related initiatives in Kenya. It provides early-stage capital as well as finance, technical and legal expertise, to support the creation of viable water investment opportunities and help attract private sources of funding. This means that, besides funding projects in their development stage, KIFFWA supports developers in structuring their initiatives so that they become investment-ready for potential financiers.

KIFFWA works with a flexible repayment model which is negotiated with lead developers per initiative. Repayment of funding allows KIFFWA to operate sustainably. Repayment is therefore sought as soon as financial close is reached.

NWP’s continued involvement

NWP set up the Facility in 2016 with funding from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Nairobi, to de-risk investments in Kenya's water sector and develop initiatives from the prefeasibility stage into investable ("bankable") opportunities. In its early years, NWP played a close operational role, providing programme management alongside finance, IT, marketing, communications and administrative support to the Facility as it built its business model, investment policy, and initial project pipeline.

As KIFFWA matured, these functions were gradually brought in-house. Since 2024, Stichting KIFFWA Foundation (SKF) in the Netherlands and KIFFWA Limited in Kenya have managed day-to-day operations independently, with dedicated finance, marketing and IT capacity of their own. NWP's role has evolved accordingly, today, NWP continues to be the Secretariat of the KIFFWA Foundation Board, supporting Board coordination and governance processes, and remains represented on the SKF Board itself, where it contributes strategic oversight and helps preserve institutional continuity and Dutch sector expertise. NWP also continues to work in close cooperation with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which remains the Facility's principal funder.

NWP is committed to a water-driven future and to a world in which water resources are sustainably used and managed. KIFFWA’s operations are a sound step in this direction, contributing directly to SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

For more information on KIFFWA and the Kenyan water market, contact us.