Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

The Green 4 Access G4A First Loss Facility is a blended finance platform aimed at supporting African FIs and MFIs to significantly increase their lending in the energy access space, by providing strong first loss risk protection and robust technical assistance. To be initially capitalized at up to $50M, G4A is being established in a tiered fund structure in order to blend existing philanthropic and donor sources with capital from impact investors, DFIs and others. The SDG7 goals can only be achieved by mainstreaming energy access finance by Africa‚ commercial lenders that will offer local currency financing.

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In designing the G4A facility, the impact on women, young people and persons living in climate-vulnerable communities in Sub Saharan Africa has been paramount. Studies show that African-women bear the main societal burdens of lack of electricity supply to households and poor access to health services - partly caused by health-centers without reliable energy supply. Increasing the role of women in Africa‚ economy is critical for economic resilience and growth. Women‚ economic participation and their ownership and control over productive assets speeds up development, helps overcome poverty and reduce inequalities, and improves family well-being, as women usually invest a higher proportion of their earnings in their families and communities than men. In the energy access sector, evidence shows that local companies with gender parity or that are led by women are more reliable and as profitable as those led by men because, as main electricity users themselves, women are well-positioned to understand customer needs, take advantage of their extensive local networks to drive sales and build trust around sustainable energy products. 

One of the biggest barriers facing women-led businesses in Africa across all sectors is the lack of access to the full range of credit, banking and financial services and facilities essential to fully developing their productive assets and their businesses. At the same time, due to socio-cultural norms and traditional male-dominated structures, African women lack the decision-making power and financial means to access electricity while also spending three hours of work per day on average more than men on activities such as cooking, cleaning and household care and collecting solid fuel. Hence, women are particularly vulnerable to the lack of electricity, and it is therefore necessary to integrate a gender-specific dimension in energy access business models, programs and investments. 

To address these issues, G4A supports FI lending to households, SMEs and health-centers to secure clean-energy services. Through the end-user financing payment model that allows people to pay for their devices in small installment payments, off-grid energy products will be more easily affordable to rural and low-income earners living in climate-vulnerable communities in the region. It will also facilitate an increase in the number of income-generating activities, especially for women and young persons and increase in revenue of already existing businesses due to the access to finance to purchase off-grid energy products and services. This will result in a higher quality of life and better living condition for these categories of people in the society.

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