SEFA and Partners Launch Competition for Clean Energy Entrepreneurs in West Africa
TUNIS, Tunisia, March 29, 2013/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) and its partners has launched a business plan competition called the West Africa Forum for Clean Energy Financing (WAFCEF/the Forum) to identify promising regional entrepreneurs and unlock renewable energy and energy efficiency investments in West Africa. Sponsors of the initiative include the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) Regional Clean Energy Investment Initiative (RCEII), ECOWAS Regional Centre for Renewable Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) and the Climate Technology Initiative Private Financing Advisory Network (CTI PFAN). Other strategic partners include the West African Development Bank (WADB) and African Biofuels and Renewable Energy Company (ABREC), affiliated with ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID).
The Forum, which will assume a business plan competition format, aims to identify and nurture entrepreneurs, start-ups and existing companies with promising clean energy projects in West Africa and serve as a conduit between them and financiers. The competition is open to all businesses and entrepreneurs operating and registered in any of the ECOWAS countries as well as foreign individuals and entities with projects in those countries. For consideration, the projects should be in the range of US $1 million to US $50 million, and should reasonably demonstrate commercial and technical viability. Projects selected for a shortlist will attend a project development and financing workshop and will receive free individual professional mentoring on further development of their business plans. WAFCEF will be held in Accra (Ghana) over three-day period in early October 2013. At the Forum, five to ten (5-10) qualified project sponsors will have the opportunity to present their business plans to invited investors and make a pitch for financing. As part of the competition, an expert panel, including investors, industry specialists and business executives with a keen interest in enabling cleaner and greener projects in West Africa, will judge the finalists' presentations and select the top three (3) projects for the West African Clean Energy Financing Awards.
Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of the African Development Bank.
About the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA): SEFA is a joint initiative between the African Development Bank and the Government of Denmark comprising of resources of up to US $56 million to unlock investments in small and medium scale sustainable energy projects on the African continent. It operates through two components: (i) project preparation grants to bring renewable energy generation and energy efficiency projects to bankability and (ii) equity investments to bridge the financing gap and infuse the managerial capacity needed for successful project implementation. SEFA is structured to be used as a flexible multi-donor facility to support the access to sustainable energy agenda in Africa, and is one of Africa's instruments under the UN-championed Sustainable Energy for All initiative.
Media contact: Penelope Pontet +216 24 66 36 96 - [email protected]
Technical contact: Joao Duarte Cunha . +216 7110 3819 - [email protected]
For more information about the competition: http://bit.ly/YGCBn9