The board of directors of the African Development Bank (AFDB) has approved the Leveraging Energy Access Finance Framework (LEAF), under which the bank will commit up to $164m to promote decentralised renewable energy projects in six African countries.

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

Under the programme, 18 decentralised renewable energy projects are expected to be financed, providing access to six million people. This 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, close to 600 million Africans lack access to electricity. The electricity situation worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic as investments in infrastructure and projects stalled.

Decentralised renewable energy systems, from solar home systems to green mini-grids and solutions for commercial and industrial users, will play a key role in meeting the electricity requirements of people and businesses across the African continent.

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

 “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,” said Kevin Kariuki, AFDB’s vice president in charge of Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth.

Energy & Utilities recently reported that the AFDB board had approved a $379.6m financing facility for the Desert to Power G5 Sahel scheme, which covers Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.