US plans $20m grant for Africa clean energy, launches new finance initiative

US Secretary of State, Mrs Hilary Clinton has announced that her country will be providing $20 million in grants to support clean energy projects in Africa.

Mrs Clinton made the announcement during the launch of the US-Africa Clean Energy Finance Initiative ceremony at the just-ended Rio+20 Summit in Brazil.

The Initiative, according to her, will help clean energy projects in Africa get started. It is a partnership between three United States Government entities – the State Department, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

“We want to drive private sector investment into the energy sector. We plan to use an initial $20 million grant fund to leverage much larger investment flows from OPIC,” Hilary said.

She adds “That will open the door then for hundreds of millions of dollars of OPIC financing, plus hundreds of millions of more dollars from the private sector for projects that otherwise would never get off the drawing board.”

She noted that the new initiative is part of an across-the-board push by the US to make “clean energy and energy security cornerstones of our foreign policy”.

By Ekow Quandzie