Nairobi, Kenya, 21^st May 2020. The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund has launched the REACT Kenya Relief Fund to provide emergency grants and technical support to energy access companies supplying solar home systems and clean cooking technologies to off-grid households during Covid-19.

In recent years, Kenya has made significant progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7, to increase access to clean and affordable energy solutions for all (SDG 7) by 2030. The current pandemic threatens to reverse these valuable development gains as government lock downs, curfews, and social distancing create an extremely difficult operating environment for service sector businesses such as the clean energy companies. Customers in rural areas are more likely to be working in the informal sectors and experiencing job losses as well as lower levels of remittances from abroad as a global recession looms.

In response to this, and with financial support from Sweden, AECF has developed an emergency relief fund that will target companies that are struggling to sustain services to their off-grid customers and can demonstrate how a grant would safeguard jobs and energy access for thousands of the poorest households across Kenya.

Victoria Sabula, Chief Executive of AECF explains more about the fund:

“We have been working hard to develop a relief fund to help successful companies that are having to cope with the unprecedented shock of Covid-19.  We specialise in supporting renewable energy businesses who are driven by a social purpose. This emergency relief fund will ensure that clean energy companies maintain their commitment to the communities they serve and adapt to new safety requirements for their workers and customers.”

We are accepting online applications for grants from USD50,000 to USD200,000 until midnight on Thursday June 11.

To apply, please go to: www.aecfafrica.org/covid-19