$20 million approved to expand the COVID-19 Off-Grid Recovery Platform

The Global Environment Facility, African Development Bank’s SEFA will provide $20 million to expand the COVID-19 Off-Grid Recovery Platform (CRP).

The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa, a multi-donor fund managed by the AfB, will provide $7m in financing for the expansion; the remaining $13m come from multilateral environmental fund, the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

The CRP is a blended finance initiative to unlock private capital for energy access companies to mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic while advancing access to clean electricity and ensuring a green economic recovery. The investment will be used for the second phase of the COVID-19 Off-Grid Recovery Platform (CRP).

The second phase will help create an additional $70m in funding for the energy access sector to cushion the pandemic’s persistent impacts on supply chains, inflation, the rising cost of capital and the effects of the conflict in Ukraine.