Multinational - The COVID-19 Off-Grid Recovery Platform (CRP) - Sima Fund I

This intervention concerns the COVID-19 Off-Grid Recovery Platform (CRP). Energy access (EA) companies are critical to achieving universal access to energy and green growth in Africa but are currently facing severe business uncertainty due to financial, economic, and operational challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 Off-Grid Recovery Platform (CRP) is a 5-year, USD 50 million blended finance platform designed to unlock private capital for EA companies to mitigate the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic while advancing access to clean electricity and ensuring a green economic recovery. CRP will avail concessional capital from the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) to specialized energy access funds to blend with their own commercial capital, to enable the provision of liquidity and working capital to EA companies on below market terms. CRP will support ca 25-30 transactions and leverage ca USD 130 million in additional co-financing at project level. It will enable the provision of new off-grid connections to at least 200,000 households, equivalent to 1,000,000 beneficiaries over the period 2020-2024. Over 1,700 full-time and 8,000 rural agent positions will be protected and over 1,600 new fulltime jobs will be created, of which 30% is estimated to be filled by women.