Kenya to host climate change center
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E-mail Xinhua, June 1, 2012
Kenya will host the first Climate Change Innovation Center that will identify and help develop enterprises that facilitate growth of the green economy as part of global efforts to reduce emission of harmful gases that cause global warming.
The new center is being set up by InfoDev, an organization that is part of the World Bank with initial seed capital of 6 million U. S. dollars.
The intention is to help developing countries benefit from investments that are aimed at reducing the rate of climate change, one of the biggest threats facing humanity today.
Valerie D'Costa, the program manager of infoDev, told Xinhua in an interview on Thursday in Nairobi that intention is to facilitate access to financing for enterprises that to utilize business opportunities arising from the climate change phenomenon.
The fund will invest in commercially viable new and existing businesses and will adopt the model of a revolving fund.
"The intention is to support small and medium scale businesses that embrace climate innovation to generate income," said D'Costa.
The center will also seek partnerships with private, public and development organizations to scale-up financing for green business enterprises.
The center will be based in Nairobi and will be managed by a local institution that is yet to be identified ahead of its launch in September this year. It is first of the model centers that InfoDev that will be established across developing countries.
Enterprises that will be targeted include mini-hydros, solar solution vendors, wind power generation enterprises among others that reduce emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The new center is a big win for Kenyan entrepreneurs who are planning to invest in green projects because financial institutions rarely finance such projects.
According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), banks in most of the African countries do not have financial products meant to finance green projects.
Kenya in particular has a huge potential of mini-hydro projects, wind power, solar power and biogas enterprises but lack of financing has been a major drawback to the utilization of those opportunities.
The new center will also improve Kenya's profile as the financial hub for green financing in the continent at a time when the IFC is working with several banks in the country to help them design and develop lending products targeting green projects.
Last year, IFC and the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced that they will cooperate to develop financing products for clean energy projects in Kenya that require a minimum of 20 million dollars.
In 2010, the IFC announced commitment of 100 million dollars in the next five years for lending to green projects through the local commercial banks under the Climate Change Investment Program (CIPA-Kenya).
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