Case Study: Bigen Africa secures commercial financing for basic community services with Palisade @RISK

Bigen Africa uses @RISK to encourage funding for basic community services in South Africa

Bigen Africa, a South African civil engineering and development‑finance firm, needed to make infrastructure projects for housing, water and electricity financially viable despite large uncertainty in future demand and cost recovery. To quantify and mitigate this "demand risk" and attract commercial funding, Bigen Africa adopted Palisade’s @RISK for demand and cost forecasting.

Using Palisade’s @RISK within Excel, Bigen Africa built probabilistic models based on Standard Dwelling Types, consumption distributions, growth forecasts and service‑level scenarios to quantify uncertainty, price risk into tariffs and demonstrate bankable outcomes. The Palisade solution simplified and sped up risk analysis, produced the level of detail lenders require, reduced the chance of "unbankable" projects and helped secure commercial finance while enabling better costing and sustainable service design.

Bigen Africa

Tian Claassens

Managing Principal of Development Finance and Advisory Services