RENAC concludes ‘Green Banking’ capacity-building to support sustainable Covid-19 recovery
23 August 2022 | Between July 2021 and July 2022, the Renewables Academy AG (RENAC) and GET.invest collaborated on a “Green Banking” project to strengthen the capacities of domestic financial sectors, with a focus on Burundi and Nigeria. The ultimate objective of this initiative was to improve financing options for renewable energy and energy efficiency, thereby contributing to a sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic in the region.
The Green Banking capacity-building comprised multiple components: The development of new training concepts and materials, a 12-week online training piloted in the two focus countries Nigeria and Burundi, as well as a five-day Train-the-Trainer course to ensure the long-term sustainability of the initiative. Targeting domestic financial actors such as microfinance institutions, saving and credit cooperatives, commercial banks, insurance companies, Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), institutional investors as well as private equity, risk capital and infrastructure funds, the training series equipped participants with know-how on the fundamentals of renewable energy and energy efficiency financing, complemented by case studies and real life examples to allow putting theoretical knowledge into practice.
The online training programme counted over 170 participants from Burundi and Nigeria, who got introduced to topics such as SME finance for small-scale green energy projects, international climate finance, national policies and characteristics of green energy markets, and understanding a borrower’s investment project.
In the subsequent Train-the-Trainer seminar, 12 participants from Burundi and Nigeria respectively came together to acquire the tools and methods to pass on knowledge about green banking and renewables financing in the future. The future trainers were made familiar not only with didactic themes such as learning processes, the role of a trainer, communication and feedback, or different learning and teachings styles, but equally with technical know-how about renewable energy applications and their economic viability. On top of that, the participants had the opportunity to visit a bank and get first-hand insights into green banking. The successful graduates will henceforth amplify the knowledge-sharing on renewable energies for a sustainable Covid-19 recovery in their respective regions.
In both components, participants successfully acquired a valuable new toolkit. Accordingly, satisfaction rates with the training were high, as many of the participants confirmed:
The “Green Banking” collaboration is part of GET.invest’s broader activities in the area of Capacity Development for Domestic Financiers which aim at strengthening domestic financial sectors in partner countries in order to mobilise finance and investments for clean energy.