The United Nations’ Development Programme (UNDP) and impact investment platform TRINE are partnering to improve the quality of life in rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa through innovative financing.
The two are jointly setting-up a new initiative to scale-up private investment in high-impact energy access projects with an initial focus on Kenya, expanding later to Rwanda, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia.
According to Sam Manaberi, CEO, TRINE, “We are dedicated to giving 66 million people access to clean energy before the end of 2022. One of the barriers in the sector is trust and to prove that the impact created is real and long-lasting. By partnering up with UNDP and use UNDP’s climate action impact tool, we will take a step forward in increasing trust in the sector and make the impact more tangible, which serves our goal of accelerating sustainable investments.”
UNDP will assess and monitor the impacts of projects using UNDP’s Climate Action Impact Tool which offers investors to quantify and track the social and environmental impacts of their investments to make informed decisions.
The initiative is expected to unlock investments of 6 Million EUR in off-grid solar energy in off-grid solar energy by Q4 of 2018 and give 300,000 people access to clean and affordable energy in Sub-Saharan Africa whilst mitigating approximate 84,000 tons of CO2 emissions.
The two firms belief that access to verifiable data on sustainable development impacts should result in enhanced trust in investees and investment platforms, while also allowing investors to make better informed investment decisions.
“We are excited to see a strong commitment from private sector to invest in initiatives in rural Kenya that will strengthen communities, create jobs, empower women etc. while contributing to the country’s climate change targets under the Paris Agreement. The Climate Action Impact Tool will help investors to make informed decisions when selecting projects with highest sustainable development impacts, thereby advancing development and accelerating the implementation of the SDGs,” said Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, UN Assistant Secretary General and Director of UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support,
Together with one of the leading companies in the off-grid solar energy sector, BBOXX, who is one of the investees on the platform, UNDP’s Climate Action Impact Tool will be piloted on their Kenya operations.
Access to energy is at the heart of most critical social, economic and environmental challenges we face today, with approximately 1.1 billion people in the world without access to electricity (53% of whom live in Sub-Saharan Africa). TRINE is solving this issue by financing off-grid solar solutions that replace expensive fossil fuels in rural Africa.