On the sidelines of the African Climate Summit, which recently concluded in Nairobi, Kenya, Germany and the United States of America announced $50 million in commitments to the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA).
Germany has pledged €40 million to the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA), a special multi-donor fund managed by the African Development Bank (AfDB). “With the SEFA, the AfDB is demonstrating its commitment to seizing the opportunities offered by the energy transition and the deployment of renewable energies”, explained Bärbel Kofler, Parliamentary State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
For its part, Washington is pledging 6.2 million dollars as part of the Power Africa initiative, coordinated by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). For David Thompson, who coordinates this initiative launched in 2013 by former US President Barack Obama, the climate emergency calls for “low-carbon, climate-resilient development through clean energy solutions that make a real difference in the lives of people across the African continent”.
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In Africa, SEFA is focusing on sustainable development through renewable energy. It is in this context that the fund is contributing to the Desert to Power programme, an AfDB initiative aimed at accelerating the deployment of solar energy in the Sahel, strengthening the transmission grid, deploying off-grid solutions, improving the business climate and revitalising national electricity companies.
Through this programme, which covers 11 African countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan), the AfDB aims to provide solar energy to 250 million people living in the Sahel region. The pan-African bank also aims to make the Sahel the world’s largest solar energy production zone, with an installed capacity of 10,000 MW. In addition to Germany and the United States of America, SEFA receives funding from the United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, Spain and Sweden, as well as from the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP).
Jean Marie Takouleu
