New U.S. program to unlock $1 billion investment in Africa
Discharging Well, Menengai Geothermal Field, Kenya (source: flickr/ GRC, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
23 Kas 2013
The U.S. government is planning to provide around $20 million in seed funding for feasibility studies and environmental impact reports in Africa for solar and geothermal projects. This could unlock around $500 Overseas Private Investment Corp. funding and matching private funds of another $500 million.
Reported yesterday, a new Climate Aid program aims at unlocking investments of up to $1 billion for solar and geothermal projects in Africa.
The program by the U.S. government is to provide up to $20 million for feasibility studies and environmental impact reports that could generate around $500 million in funding from the U.S. development finance group, Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC). This could then spur additional $500 million in private investment.
The announcement came alongside the recent Climate Change Summit in Warsaw, Poland.
OPIC sees the seed funding as crucial, as it would help projects to get off the ground and overcome early development hurdles. So while this is a small amount it essentially can unlock additional development funding and matching funds from the private sector of up to $1 billion in total.
So far six projects have been approved from more than 100 proposals under the Africa program, according to OPIC.
Source: Bloomberg
