EEP Africa Trust Fund enters full operational mode with the first Investment Committee

The EEP Investment Committee, consisting of representatives from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (MFA), Nordic Development Fund (NDF), and Austrian Development Agency (ADA), convened on 13 November in Pretoria to confirm the selection of projects to be funded from the 14th Call for Proposals. After a fruitful day of presentations and discussion, 29 projects, with a portfolio size of EUR 14 million, were selected.

NDF Program Manager and the Chair of the Investment Committee, Aleksi Lumijärvi, noted “Immense work has gone into the evaluation of 530 Concept Notes and the subsequent shortlisting of 40 high quality proposals. The selected portfolio of 29 projects represents the full spectrum of clean energy solutions in Africa, and EEP financing allocated to these projects will promote several emerging market, business and financing trends.”

On 15 November, two days after the Investment Committee, the EEP Supervisory Board assembled for the first meeting under the new Trust Fund structure with all the current Fund Donors present. Ms. Nomawethu Qase, Director of New & Renewable Energy at Department of Energy in South Africa, and Mr. Moses Ntlamelle, Senior Programme Officer on Energy of SADC, participated as observers and presented their work in the sector.

“MFA is very proud of having started such a great initiative in green climate financing”, said Päivi Lehtonen, MFA representative and Chair of the Supervisory Board Meeting. “EEP Africa started in 2010 and has successfully delivered clean energy through more than 220 projects in the region. In the beginning of this year, we were very happy to expand the scope to two more countries, Malawi and Zimbabwe, and are confident that the Programme will continue achieving good results under NDF management.”

The meetings followed a well-attended Knowledge Exchange Forum (KEF) in Kigali, on 9 November, taking focus on mini-grid development and investment opportunities.  The event was co-hosted with Energy Private Developers (EPD) and was the final featured event in the Rwanda Energy Week that also covered events hosted by Global Alliance for Clean Cooking (GACC) and GOGLA. EEP regularly organises KEFs in the region to facilitate sharing of lessons learnt within the sector.

About EEP
The Energy and Environment Partnership covering Southern and East Africa (EEP Africa) is a multi-donor fund providing early stage grant and catalytic financing to innovative clean energy projects, technologies and business models. EEP Africa is hosted and managed by the NDF and, since 2010, has received funding from ADA, MFA, NDF and the UK.