COP27: Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa secures $64 million in new funding from Norway and GEAPP | African Development Bank

The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa has received a new injection of $64 million in grant funding from the Norwegian Development Cooperation Agency (NORAD) and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP).

SEFA, a multi-donor dedicated fund managed by the African Development Bank, provides concessional financing to unlock private investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Commenting on the grant, Norwegian International Development Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim highlighted SEFA’s continued contribution to addressing some of the biggest challenges hindering access to clean energy in Africa. “Six hundred million Africans do not have access to electricity and 900 million do not have modern stoves,” Tvinnereim said. “With today’s announcement, NORAD – SEFA’s partner since 2018 – has increased its contribution to NOK 535 million ($54.72 million).”

Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet Executive Director for Africa Joseph Nganga said GEAPP is proud to partner with the African Development Bank to expand access to clean, affordable and reliable energy for communities across Africa.

“We are jumping over polluting energy sources and supporting decarbonization across the energy sector. Together we will focus our efforts on renewable energy projects with high potential to be transformative, scalable and replicable, and we look forward to supporting SEFA to catalyze and attract additional funding for these critical projects,” he added .

Dr. Daniel Schroth, director of the African Development Bank for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, recognized the importance of the grant funding. “These new contributions to SEFA are a recognition of the critical role SEFA plays in catalyzing private sector investment in Africa’s renewable energy sector and will enable SEFA to further scale up its investments in the coming years,” said he.

The announcement came during a panel discussion as part of the Climate Summit (COP27) held in Sharm El-Sheikh from November 6 to 18. The panel discussion, titled Renewable energy for climate action, socio-economic transformation in Africa: the role of SEFA, minister Tvinnereim and Ed Borgstein, country program director of GEAPP.

The panel also included the Minister of Water Resources and Electricity of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Olivier Mwenze Mukaleng; the Director for Climate, Energy and Environment at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Dr. Heike Henn, Terje Osmundsen, founder and CEO of Empower New Energy; Aaron Chang, CEO of PowerGen; Peter George, co-investment director of the Spark+ Africa Fund; Rokya Ye-Dieng, UNDP Deputy Deputy Representative to the Democratic Republic of Congo; Ash Sharma, Vice President of the Nordic Green Bank, and Geoff Sinclair, Managing Director of the Renewable Energy Performance Platform.

Sinclair congratulated SEFA on the new funding. He noted that “SEFA plays a critical role in catalyzing renewable energy development in Africa and agreed to an important conversation on how to increase the scale and pace of implementation. It was clear that all actors in the sector need to work together more to do this, and I look forward to putting that cooperation into practice.”

Sharma said: “Public funding through results-based financing plays an important role in reducing risk and scaling up off-grid electricity solutions and modern clean cooking solutions. The Nordic Green Bank manages two multi-donor SDG7 instruments to support these sectors in nine African countries through the Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa and the Modern Cooking Facility for Africa, respectively.”

Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (left) and Norwegian minister Tvinnereim

ABOUT THE GLOBAL ENERGY ALLIANCE FOR PEOPLE AND THE PLANET

The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet is an alliance of local entrepreneurs, governments of emerging and developed countries, and technology, policy and finance partners. With philanthropic partners Bezos Earth Fund, IKEA Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, GEAPP works to create an enabling environment, capacity and market conditions for private sector solutions, catalyze new business models through innovation and entrepreneurship, and deploy risky capital to private sector solutions, and help just transition solutions.

ABOUT NORAD

NORAD, the Norwegian development cooperation agency, falls under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the field of the Norwegian Climate and Forestry Initiative, NORAD falls under the Ministry of Climate and Environment.