The Tony Elumelu Foundation Partners with the US Government on “Beyond the Grid” – a new Power Africa initiative
As a partner, the Tony Elumelu Foundation has committed to a financial investment over the next five years to seed and scale distributed energy solutions across the continent. As a result will in turn enhance homes, businesses, schools and improve the livelihoods of Africans in Africa. Other partners of Beyond the Grid include the United Nations Foundation, Shell Foundation, Invested Development, and Acumen to name a few (27 in total).
Beyond the Grid is aimed at unlocking investment and growth specifically for off-grid and small-scale energy solutions. This initiative is a step to significantly increase the current investment activities of Power Africa, by building on more than 25-small scale energy projects currently in the development.
According to Beyond the Grid, this initiative will strengthen the enabling environment and foster the clear, predictable rules needed for investment and operations. It will also catalyze private-sector investment through pre-investment technical assistance, risk mitigation, and new financial tools that strategically blend donor and private capital as well as aggregate small energy projects for investment at scale.
Launched two years ago by President Obama, Power Africa is focused on doubling electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa. Access to electricity has primarily become the debilitating factor in the growth of the African economy. More than 240 million people on the continent, in rural and peri-urban areas in the six Power Africa countries are living without electricity.