AfDB Approves $800m LEAF Programme to Expand Decentralised Renewables Across Africa

The board of directors of the African Development Bank (AFDB) has approved the Leveraging Energy Access Finance Framework (LEAF) programme to promote decentralised renewable energy projects in six African countries

The $800m programme has been established to boost commercial and local currency investments to improve activities of decentralised renewable energy companies in countries like Ghana, Guinea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Tunisia.

Under the programme, 18 decentralised renewable energy projects will be financed, providing access to six million people, which is expected to result in savings of 28.8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over the lifetime of the systems.

According to the recent Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 report, over 600 million Africans lack access to electricity, which worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic, when investments in infrastructure and projects were stalled.

The LEAF programme, in collaboration with the Green Climate Fund, approved $170.9m in concessional financing for it in July 2021. The LEAF framework is part of the bank’s broader strategy under the ‘New Deal on Energy for Africa’, complementing existing initiatives such as the ‘Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa’.

Speaking about the programme, said Kevin Kariuki, AFDB’s vice president in charge of Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth said, “The African Development Bank is delighted to partner with the Green Climate Fund on the Leveraging Energy Access Finance Framework, which will not only accelerate access to electricity based on decentralised renewable energy solutions, hence reducing the respective countries’ carbon footprints, but will do so with the active participation of a private sector facilitated by local currency financing and commercial capital availed under the program.”

Meanwhile, a report by Energy & Utilities stated that the AFDB board had approved a $379.6m financing facility for the Desert to Power G5 Sahel scheme covering Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.