The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) and Agence Française de Développement (AFD Group) have stated their commitment to work together to mobilize up to $5 million of technical assistance to elevate the role of local financial institutions in accelerating clean energy access in Africa.
The partnership was formed at the Finance in Common Summit (FiCS) held yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa. This collaboration will begin with a $1.3 million pilot envelope of technical assistance grants from GEAPP, to be complemented with lines of credit from AFD Group. GEAPP and AFD Group’s joint investments will direct both technical and financial support to private financial institutions and Public Development Banks (PDBs) in Africa.
The initiative is a direct response to the growing momentum among partners supporting Mission 300, the World Bank and African development Bank’s landmark ambition, to deliver affordable and sustainable electricity to 300 million people in Africa by 2030. This builds a critical foundation for crowd funding, resources, and tools from public, private, and philanthropic partners to scale up local and global cooperation.
This AFD & GEAPP initiative will directly address this financing gap by equipping those African financial institutions with the necessary technical, financial, legal, environmental, and social support to strengthen their financial readiness, improve portfolio screening, enhanced due diligence capabilities, and support the analysis of portfolio emissions. With these tools, PDBs will be better able to back bankable projects that generate sustainable development in the countries where they operate.
The chief executive officer of AFD Group, Rémy Rioux said that “through national PDBs and local private banks, we have a unique opportunity to accelerate energy access in Africa by strengthening the capacity of local financial institutions to participate in the objectives of Mission 300.
“Our partnership with GEAPP and this new initiative, leveraging both philanthropic and institutional funding, proves that FiCS is an ideal platform to support cross-fertilising partnerships between public development banks and other stakeholders committed to sustainable solutions.”
Chief executive officer of GEAPP, Woochong Um added that “GEAPP is working with AFD Group to pool resources and invest in innovations that will help unlock more funding for Africa’s energy access projects.
“This is a demonstration of the power of radical collaboration to achieve the Mission 300 goal of connecting 300 million Africans by 2030 is driving us to uncover new solutions, extend the pipeline of commercially viable projects, and create jobs, skills, and better livelihoods in areas where electricity access remains a challenge.”
This initiative directly supports the goals of Mission 300, National Energy Compacts (NECs), and UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7), which aims to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. It will also help foster public-private-philanthropic partnerships, which are essential for project development in emerging markets, and will stimulate new value chains and cutting-edge technologies in the energy sector, including distributed renewable energy systems and electric cooking solutions.
