Ghana is to receive up to US$300,000 to undertake development of a renewable energy investment plan. Ghana has been chosen as part of nine (9) African countries who are to receive funding and operational support from the CIF’s renewable energy program to undertake the project. The funding is to be given by the Climate Investment Fund’s (CIF) Scaling-up Renewable Energy in Low Income Countries Programme (SREP), a program established to scale up the deployment of renewable energy solutions and expand renewable markets in the world’s poorest countries. This came to light at the just ended semi-annual Climate Investment
Funds (CIF) governing body meetings held June 25-28, 2014, in
Montego Bay, Jamaica. The countries are Ghana, Benin, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi,Rwanda, Sierra-Leone, Uganda and Zambia. This increases the number of African countries piloting CIF climate-smart investment plans to 25, nearly half of all 55 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. An independent Expert Group
selected the countries from a group of 40 countries expressing interest in joining the SREP. The SREP sub-committee agreed that it will provide up to $300,000 for each country to undertake development of an SREP investment plan. “This move sends an impressive signal for change,” stated SREP co-chair Erastus Wahome, representative for Kenya, the first country to operationalize a CIF transformational geothermal programme
in Africa. “The additional donor support for energy transformation is a clear sign of confidence in the success we’ve already seen taking place in low-income countries in Africa and other regions, and a sign of developing countries’ continuing enthusiasm to commit to CIF-style transformation. Some of the criteria used to select the countries included low energy access rates, existence of an enabling policy and regulatory environment, renewable-friendly energy development strategies, strong governance capacity, and capacity for implementation.
