The ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) are proposing to establish a new blended finance facility of USD 75 million called the ECOWAS Renewable Energy Facility (EREF) 2030 to grow businesses in West Africa.
The partners in a statement said the fund will support small and medium sized renewable energy and energy efficiency (RE&EE) projects and businesses in rural and peri-urban areas of the ECOWAS member countries to mitigate the region’s challenges of access to renewable energy.
Recall that ECREEE in collaboration with its partners organized the 7th Edition of the ECOWAS Sustainable Energy Forum (ESEF 2022) from 31st October to 1st November 2022 in Abuja, Nigeria with the theme, “Achieving Sustainable Energy Targets in the ECOWAS Region: Moving from Resilience to Transition.”
The Forum convened to discuss and proffer solutions to the challenges hampering the development of a regional sustainable energy market, examine policies needed to improve energy security and achieve Sustainable Development goal (SDG 7) and what is needed to transition to a low-carbon energy trajectory in the region.
EREF 2030 will build on the learnings from the previous EREF facilities: EREF-1 launched in 2011, EREF-2 launched in 2014 and EREF-3 launched in 2018.
The goal of the ‘EREF 2030’ is to support country-owned and country-led climate compatible development in the ECOWAS region by financing renewable energy projects that will contribute to poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the region.
The overall objective of the EREF 2030 is to contribute to the sustainable development in rural and peri-urban areas of the ECOWAS region through increased deployment and usage of reliable and affordable renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies and services.
“The Direct Beneficiaries of the EREF are project developers directly involved in the execution of renewable energy projects funded by EREF. The Final Beneficiaries are the energy end-users particularly in peri-urban and rural areas benefiting from modern, reliable, and affordable energy services and finally the global community through the reduction of GHG emissions,” the statement said.
The facility is open to collaboration with potential financial and technical partners.
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