- AECF will provide $1.2 million to support the creation of new businesses via renewable energy.
- Businesses and entrepreneurs in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe can benefit from the fund.
- Proposed technologies must meet current market needs while accelerating existing solutions to serve African communities better.
The African Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) has launched a $1.2 million Innovation Fund to support new businesses’ creation via renewable energy. The facility is available for businesses and entrepreneurs in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
The fund will help to scale and ready emerging innovations for the market. The fund will support these innovations to achieve the financial, technical, and networking requirements needed to scale. The fund will prioritise innovations that; reduce the impacts of traditional cooking options at the household and institutional levels, shore up community protection against climate change, and provide social and economic infrastructure such as water pumping, agro-processing, cooling, and refrigeration services. Interested businesses must demonstrate how proposed innovations will lead to economic development via job creation and diversification in low-income households. Proposed technologies must meet current market needs while accelerating existing solutions to serve African communities better.
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The Innovation Fund builds on AECF’s Renewable Energy and Adaptation to Climate Technologies (REACT) initiative, which supports the private sector in developing and expanding off-grid renewable energy services to rural communities on the continent.
AECF CEO, Victoria Sabula, noted, “The Innovation Fund is key to enhancing large scale transformation within local communities. Investing in affordable and accessible renewable energy solutions can create jobs, grow economies, and build more sustainable livelihoods. Through the fund, we hope to unearth new ways that renewable technology – be it domestic, communal, or commercial – can be used to generate income and create jobs.” The deadline for the applications is 29th April 2021.