Nigeria and a United Nations-backed agency, Sustainable Energy For All organisation, known as SEforALL, have set a $500 million target for a fund to finance the roll out of so-called distributed renewable energy, such as solar home systems and mini-grids.
The fund backed by the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) will be managed by Africa50, an infrastructure investor established by the African Development Bank (AfDB), Bloomberg reported yesterday.
Nigerian pension funds will also invest, according to Damilola Ogunbiyi, SEforALL’s Chief Executive Officer.
The aim is to put together a “fund that would be accessible and will be in local currency for local developers,” she said in an interview in Cape Town on the sidelines of a global gathering of development finance institutions.
The fund is linked to the Mission 300 programme led by the World Bank and the AfDB to provide electricity to 300 million people in Africa by 2030.
The initiative will provide tens of billions of dollars to countries that meet certain conditions including reforming power utilities and adapting regulations to encourage private investment, it said.
