EABF22: GET.invest introduces Team Europe One Stop Shop for Green Energy Investments
17 February 2022 | On the occasion of the EU-Africa Business Forum 2022, GET.invest, a European programme managed by GIZ and funded by the European Union and four Member States, announced the launch of the pilot phase of the Team Europe One Stop Shop for Green Energy Investments. This pilot phase will initially be powered by GET.invest. The new online platform is an evolution of existing services and aims to answer the need for a single access point to European support and financing instruments for clean energy solutions in sub-Saharan Africa. As such, it bundles the European contribution to the green energy transition in Africa.
The Team Europe One Stop Shop for Green Energy Investments is available from today at www.one-stop-shop.get-invest.eu. Project and business developers operating in partner countries can visit the platform to filter through European funding and apply for advisory support to make their proposals bankable and link them with suitable financiers. The One Stop Shop also aims to act as an intermediary for investors and financiers interested in support for their pipeline development or listing their offer in the database.
The launch event, facilitated by GET.invest in the course of the EU-Africa Business Forum 2022, was attended by representatives from the European Commission, the leading international business association Alliance for Rural Electrification and the RES4Africa foundation.
Speaking at the signing ceremony on 17 February, Stefano Signore, Head of Unit at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships, said: “The European Union has been backing and boosting private investments in the energy sector for the past years. Through the European programme GET.invest, Team Europe is stepping up its support to the private sector in order to help sustainable energy projects to reach bankability stage. The One Stop Shop capitalises on past achievements and aims at offering a credible and skilled platform bringing together finance providers and finance seekers, to scale up clean energy investment projects in sub-Saharan Africa”.
Roberto Vigotti, Secretary General at RES4Africa Foundation, explained: “At RES4Africa, it is our mission to advocate for favourable conditions for scaling up investments in clean energy technologies to accelerate Africa’s just energy transition and transformation. The new One Stop Shop for Green Energy Investments will greatly contribute to creating these favourable conditions in the sense that it facilitates a quicker connection between investees and investors. We fully support the new initiative and are excited to see it grow.”
David Lecoque, CEO at the Alliance for Rural Electrification, stated: “As the chief global business association for decentralised renewable energy, we continuously engage with our 185+ industry and investor members to address and convey their priorities and needs. A reoccurring issue for companies and project developers is the difficult access to finance and support mechanisms caused by complexity of the offering. ARE therefore applauds the continued leadership of the European Union to facilitate renewable energy investments and looks forward to co-designing the One Stop Shop”.
Michael Franz, Team Leader at GET.invest, commented: “GET.invest has been tasked with translating the concept into practice and it is great to see it become reality. Together with our donors – the European Union, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria – as well as partners, we have built successful services to mobilise investment in clean energy solutions over the past years. With these services, we will power the Team Europe One Stop Shop to help make the European Union’s support even more accessible. As always, we will do this in collaboration with the sector; we therefore invite everyone to contact us with feedback and help us shape the One-Stop-Shop concept in this initial phase.”