Agence Française de Développement and GEAPP partner to accelerate equitable clean energy transitions

Paris | 22 June 2023 – The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) and Agence Française de Développement (AFD) are pleased to announce the signing of a partnership agreement via a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) at The Summit for a New Global Financial Pact in Paris.

This strategic partnership exemplifies a shared dedication to tackling the urgent issues of energy poverty and climate change. Through their collaborative efforts in unlocking climate finance, GEAPP and AFD will strive to promote universal access and a just energy transition in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Rémy Rioux, CEO of AFD said “Given the magnitude of the energy transition in which the world is engaged, we need to join all forces to limit the effects of climate change, in line with the Paris Agreement. This is the sense of The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, gathering in Paris all key stakeholders: governments and public development banks, private investors and philanthropists, to find ways to accelerate the just energy transition. I am very proud of our partnership with GEAPP, which is the perfect illustration of how we can find new and innovative ways to work and invest together in the transition towards clean energy, in emerging and developing countries.”

Simon Harford, GEAPP’s CEO said, “Today, 3.6 billion people across the globe live in energy poverty. In parallel, climate change is making our world increasingly uninhabitable. These are challenges too large to solve alone. GEAPP demonstrates the possibility of collaborative action to remove siloes, scale up solutions and drive systemic change to foster green economic growth and sustainable jobs and livelihoods. The deep insight, knowledge and network brought to the Alliance by AFD will substantially amplify and accelerate our work to date.”

The partnership agreement sets out a practical framework of cooperation including:

• Co-investment opportunities: Seeking and evaluating co-financing opportunities leveraging blended finance mechanisms to accelerate clean energy projects.
• Advancing technology and programmatic solutions: Addressing market barriers to clean energy transitions and universal electricity access including such areas as carbon markets, mobilization of climate finance and utility innovation (including battery storage to decrease costs and enable viable business models for the adoption and scaling of renewable energy).
• Technical assistance funds: Providing support for enabling environments and project development, enhancing stakeholder capacity, and overcoming implementation barriers.

GEAPP and AFD’s joint efforts will also encompass initiatives such as diesel replacement and mini-grids, aiming to drive sustainable energy solutions.

Rémy Rioux will join GEAPP’s Global Leadership Council, a diverse and growing coalition of global leaders co-chaired by Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Norway, and Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. This year, the GLC has committed to dramatically reducing the cost of renewable energy technologies, focusing on battery storage systems and the aggregation of off-grid technology.

About AFD
Agence Française de Développement (AFD) implements France’s policy on international development and solidarity. Through its financing of NGOs and the public sector, as well as its research and publications, AFD supports and accelerates transitions towards a fairer, more resilient world. It also provides training in sustainable development (at AFD Campus) and other awareness-raising activities in France.

With our partners, we are building shared solutions with and for the people of the Global South. Our teams are at work on more than 4,000 projects in the field, in the French Overseas Departments and Territories, in 115 countries and in regions in crisis. We strive to protect global public goods – promoting a stable climate, biodiversity and peace, as well as gender equality, education and healthcare. In this way, we contribute to the commitment of France and the French people to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Towards a world in common.

About the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet
The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) is an alliance of philanthropy, governments in emerging and developed economies, and technology, policy, and financing partners. Our common mission is to enable emerging economies to shift to a clean energy, pro-growth model that accelerates universal energy access and inclusive economic growth, while supporting the global community to meet critical climate goals during the next decade. As an alliance we aim to reduce 4 gigatons of future carbon emissions, expand clean energy access to one billion people, and enable 150 million new jobs. With philanthropic partners, IKEA Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Bezos Earth Fund, GEAPP works to build the enabling environment, capacity, and market conditions for private sector solutions, catalyse new business models through innovation and entrepreneurship, and deploy high-risk capital to encourage private sector solutions, and assist just transition solutions. For more information, please visit www.energyalliance.org and follow us on Twitter at @EnergyAlliance.

Media Contacts
AFD: Juliette Courot, courotj@afd.fr
GEAPP: Eric Gay, eric.gay@energyalliance.org