Savannah Impact Advisory

Ci Gaba ('Progress' in Hausa) is Savannah Impact Advisory's flagship vehicle, a Ghana-domiciled, SEC-licensed fund of funds that backs indigenous private fund managers across West Africa. It deploys patient local-currency capital into productive sectors — agriculture, agro-processing, light manufacturing, financial inclusion, health, and education — with a gender lens applied to every commitment. The structure gives limited partners diversified access to a portfolio of GPs they would be unlikely to diligence independently.

SIA relies on a 60-plus year combined network across Ghana and the broader West African private equity ecosystem rather than open calls or placement-agent pipelines. The firm's senior team has held investment committee and trustee roles in Ghana's impact-investing infrastructure, which provides early visibility into emerging fund managers. SIA's pipeline is embedded in local market relationships, not external databases.

The firm's primary architecture is fund of funds — committing to indigenous GPs. However, alongside its fund partners, SIA co-invests directly into high-conviction portfolio companies at growth inflection points. It also runs a secondaries programme that provides liquidity to existing fund investors and creates entry points into mature African private equity portfolios, and it manages bespoke separate accounts for institutional investors with specific mandates.

Gender is a non-negotiable screen applied to every fund commitment and co-investment, not a sidecar allocation. SIA gives priority to women-led and women-focused fund managers, and through the Lady Angel Network it directs capital to women-owned enterprises. The firm's 2030 targets include 50 percent of capital earmarked for women-owned or women-managed SMEs and specific support for women-managed VC funds within its portfolio.

The firm's website lists a Chief Executive Officer, a Principal, a Governance & Compliance Officer, a Finance Manager, and an Investment Officer among its team, but it does not publish individual biographies or names. The Ci Gaba Fund of Funds is governed by a separate board and investment committee, whose members provide strategic oversight and final decision-making on commitments. SIA has not publicly disclosed the identities of these committee members.

A climate lens is embedded in SIA's investment process alongside its gender and youth lenses. The firm mandates that at least 25 percent of portfolio companies contribute measurably to climate action, spanning renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and circular-economy models. This applies across fund commitments, co-investments, and separate accounts.

Neither. SIA is an SEC-licensed investment advisor structured as a specialised fund-of-funds manager, not a family office. It manages third-party capital through pooled vehicles and separate accounts, targeting development finance institutions, institutional investors, and family offices that want diversified, gender-forward exposure to West African private equity without building their own GP selection capability on the ground.