The Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa (BGFA) program, a multi-donor results-based financing program for supporting the scale-up of energy access in six Sub-Saharan African countries, is progressing to its next phase as project implementation has started in Burkina Faso, Liberia and Zambia.
The first contracts under the BGFA program in Burkina Faso, Liberia and Zambia were signed during spring 2022, supporting the establishment of over half a million off-grid energy connections. As these projects are now starting their implementation and reporting on reached project milestones, including established energy service subscriptions (ESSs), it is crucial to bring the program closer to the supported projects in the BGFA program countries and their clean off-grid energy markets.
“We are very happy to announce that we have signed a framework agreement with the international consultancy company NIRAS to establish a local footprint supporting the implementation of the BGFA program together with our long-standing partner REEEP. We are really excited to move into the next phase of the program and, with support from our two project implementation partners, monitor and assist the progress of our financed projects in all BGFA countries,” comments Ash Sharma, Head of Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa and Vice President of Green Transition Special Funds at Nefco.
With NIRAS, a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy company operating globally and with a strong presence in Africa, the BGFA program will be able to strengthen its local capacity and presence in all the project countries. The assignment consists of support for independent local monitoring of the contracted companies, i.e. the energy service providers. As part of the on-the-ground monitoring, reporting and verification services (MRV), NIRAS will monitor the contracted energy service providers, review implementation progress and milestones reached by the financed projects, support and coordinate work related to impact evaluations and verification of established energy service subscriptions and provide institutional support in the BGFA countries. NIRAS was selected through a transparent procurement procedure in line with Nefco’s procurement guidelines and procedures.
“NIRAS is excited to get the opportunity to collaborate with Nefco and REEEP. We will form a proactive and highly competent MRV unit such that Value for Money is ensured, while supporting BGFA awardees to successfully implement their projects in each of the project countries. NIRAS has a solid understanding of the off-grid sector needs and technical systems which will help facilitating a speedy and efficient analysis of the projects’ progress. This way we can support the efforts towards considerable growth of the off-grid sector across the region,” says Sven Vejen Hindkjær, Director, NIRAS International Consulting Denmark.
The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), which has been supporting the BGFA program with market scoping activities, design of funding windows, development work to expand the program and due diligence reviews of selected projects since the start-up of the BGFA program in 2019, will continue to work with the above tasks to support the general program implementation as well as provide technical assistance support to the BGFA-contracted energy service providers. REEEP has hitherto provided technical assistance to the markets and administrative support to the local Platform for Market Change task force under the pilot program Beyond the Grid Fund for Zambia.
“It has been great to see how BGFA has scaled-up over the last couple of years and REEEP looks forward to continuing its work with Nefco and now also alongside NIRAS to support the deployment of modern sustainable energy connections across our five active countries and to help expand the program’s impact into new markets as well,” comments Peter Storey, Team Leader at REEEP
The Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa (BGFA) aims to establish up to 1.35 million energy connections by 2028, benefiting more than 6 million people in Burkina Faso, Liberia, Mozambique, Zambia and Uganda. The program has so far carried out three funding rounds and is now preparing for launching a fourth funding round in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 21 June 2022. The first funding round opened in autumn 2020 in Burkina Faso, Liberia and Zambia (BGFA1), and the second and third in spring 2021 in Mozambique (BGFA2) and Uganda (BGFA3) respectively. BGFA is currently concluding the remaining contract negotiations from the first funding round and evaluating applications received for the Uganda country program.