The International Center for Climate Governance (ICCG) has named Gaia’s project Clean Energy Promotion through Microfinance in Ethiopia as the Best Climate Practice of 2016.
The project, led by Gaia and implemented together with MicroEnergy International, Swan Management and three Ethiopian microfinance institutions (MFIs), establishes an innovative and replicable microcredit concept to source, finance, and deliver Clean Energy Technologies (CETs) to low-income households and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Ethiopia.
The business models developed enable the MFIs to establish scalable clean energy-related businesses and offer various CETs to current and new clients reaching more than 200 000 households and small enterprises in rural and semi-urban Ethiopia. As part of the project, the entire supply chain for high-quality CET for low-income markets has been developed, including logistics, design of credit products, warranty and after sales services and monitoring.
Gaia has also produced a presentation video about the project.
“The project presents an excellent example of implementing micro finance strategies that are proving to deliver actual results in climate-vulnerable developing countries” describes Ms Aurora D’Aprile, coordinator of ICCG Best Climate Practices observatory.
“The project has successfully linked and merged different businesses in the financing and technology sectors to create complete value chains that enable the clients of the microfinance institutions to have access to good quality and affordable clean energy technologies with well-functioning warranty and after sales services, often for the first time in their lives. This is a model that can be further up-scaled to benefit millions of people living in the off-grid areas of the developing world” says Pasi Rinne, Chairman of the Board of Gaia. The project is financed by the Nordic Climate Facility of Nordic Development Fund and NEFCO in collaboration with the project partners.
More information
- Pasi Rinne, Chairman of the Board, Gaia Consulting, tel. +358 400 464 127, firstname.surname@gaia.fi
- Paula Tommila, Business Manager, Gaia Consulting, tel. +358 40 538 4813, firstname.surname@gaia.fi
- ICCG Website
- Read more: Microfinance brings clean energy and development to Ethiopia
