Despite being among the lowest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), countries in sub-Saharan Africa have already experienced widespread loss and damage due to climate change. These impacts range from biodiversity loss to water shortages and reduced food production leading to slower economic growth. In some countries, energy is still dominated by fossil fuels, especially in off-grid rural areas where energy production relies heavily on biomass and diesel generation. Without improving their adaptation capacity, the impacts from climate change are expected to further harm rural livelihoods in these countries. 

The REPP 2 program will deliver climate impact by leveraging private sector funding to promote investments in small-scale renewable energy projects in nine sub-Saharan countries, seven of which are classified as least developed. The project will help address the current limited investor appetite and market barriers in the sub-Saharan region by providing blended finance to support smaller-scale renewable energy projects thereby bolstering the climate resilience of both small businesses and households. The project is expected to improve access to clean energy for more than 7.7 million people in some of sub-Saharan Africa’s hardest-to-reach regions. It will also strengthen the capacities of local developers in environmental, social, governance and financial structuring to attract investments from both concessional and commercial sources.