Like other regions of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) faces many challenges as it strives to reduce poverty and improve the socioeconomic well being of its population. One of the key challenges facing economic growth in the region is limited access to modern energy services and growing energy security challenges. The region faces widespread and unsustainable production and use of traditional biomass (firewood and charcoal).

The ECOWAS Renewable Energy Facility (EREF) is a grant facility which is managed by the Secretariat of the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) based in Praia, Cape Verde.  It provides grant co-funding for small to medium sized renewable energy and energy efficiency (RE&EE) projects and businesses in rural and peri-urban areas. The Facility undertakes regular demand driven call for proposals.

The programme aims to increase investment in geothermal energy in East Africa, contributing to economic development and growth, by addressing market failures which hinder the very early stages of geothermal market development, including: • reducing the risk of exploratory test drilling, leading to increased investor confidence in under exploited East Africa geothermal energy; and, • improving geothermal strategy, policy and regulations that facilitate investment.

The project will contribute to SADC’s objective of creating access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy services in the SADC Region. Although having a rich endowment of energy resources such as natural gas, hydropower, wind and solar the SADC Region faces serious energy challenges. The prevailing instability is compounded by many factors, e.g.

Description

Access to sustainable energy is a key enabler for economic growth, health, education, and helps provide opportunities to all generations and populations. Sustainable energy lies at the heart of both the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as other policy programmes and initiatives. The 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) sets out to ensure “access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”.

The Africa Clean Energy Corridor (ACEC) is a regional initiative that seeks to secure the accelerated development of renewable energy potential and cross-border trade of renewable power within the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) and Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). The initiative builds upon the strong political commitment of African leaders to strengthen regional institutions and transmission infrastructure, forming large competitive markets and lowering costs across production sectors.