EUR 52 million invested
EEP Africa provides early stage grant and catalytic debt financing for innovative clean energy projects, technologies and business models in Southern and East Africa. The immediate objective is to enhance clean energy access, development and investment, with a particular focus on benefitting vulnerable and underserved groups. EEP Africa focuses on three core activities:
- Clean Energy Financing: EEP Africa channels funding through two windows. EEP Innovation provides early stage grant financing to projects in active development through competitive, open calls-for-proposals. There have been 15 calls since 2010. EEP Catalyst is the Fund’s impact investing window providing flexible, follow-on debt financing to successful EEP Africa grantees.
- Investment Facilitation and Business Development Support: EEP Africa improves the investment readiness of projects through targeted business support services and by facilitating linkages with the investor community. EEP Africa regularly organizes Investor Forums, an invitation-only matchmaking event offering investors access to a pipeline of investable clean energy projects.
- Knowledge, Policy and Partnerships: EEP Africa leverages the extraordinary applied learning happening inside its diverse project portfolio to develop a wide range of knowledge products that advance clean energy understanding and awareness. EEP Africa regularly organizes Knowledge Exchange Forums (KEFs), which are open events that bring together clean energy stakeholders for discussions on trends, experiences and lessons learned.
EEP Africa is run by the Nordic Development Fund. EEP Africa provides finance through two financing windows:
- EEP Innovation will consider co-funding requests in the form of grants and repayable grants between EUR 200,000 and EUR 1 million.
- EEP Catalyst provides limited follow-on support up to EUR 2 million for selected projects that have previously received EEP funding. This support is in the form of loans, guarantees or other risk sharing instruments.
Austria, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, NDF and Switzerland
The minimum required co-financing is 30-50% of the total project budget depending on the project phase and company maturity. Please read the CfP 2023 Application Guidelines and Project Implementation Manual for more concrete guidance on financing.
The grantee shall permit and assist EEP Africa, NDF and other stakeholders or designated third parties to carry out monitoring, site visits, inspections and audits to the project. During the visits the grantee shall provide access to all relevant project material including project accounts and assist EEP Africa, NDF and their representatives in the verification of the project results and project costs. EEP Africa, NDF and their representatives have the right to perform monitoring or site visits, inspections and audits also after the Contract period and completion of the project. The same applies even if the Contract has been terminated.
The EEP Phase II management and implementation is coordinated by the KPMG (Finland) EEP Coordination Office (KPMG ECO) based in Pretoria, South Africa. In the participating countries National Coordinators are appointed from the Ministries of Energy to participate in Programme coordination at the country level, providing also insights of new energy innovations in a region.
Representatives from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), The Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC) are members of the Supervisory Board, which has the overall oversight of the Programme.
Private companies, start-ups and social enterprises from any country with early-stage projects in one or more of the EEP Africa target countries (Botswana, Burundi, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) are welcome to apply. All applicants must be registered legal entities for at least six (6) months prior to the EoI opening date. Applicants can be registered in any country but need to demonstrate local engagement. Applications from women entrepreneurs and locally-led organisations are strongly encouraged.
All applicants must meet the eligibility criteria defined in the CfP 2023 Application Guidelines.
EEP Africa works in 15 countries across Southern and East Africa, including: Botswana, Burundi, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The application process is a two-stage process; Expression of Interest (EoI) and a detailed Full Proposal. After the EOI has been submitted, EEP Africa will hold a virtual bootcamp followed by pitching sessions for those applicants that are longlisted. Based on the pitch-interviews, applicants are shortlisted to proceed to full proposal stage.