africapractice appointed as UNEPs Africa Carbon Asset Development (ACAD) Facility Strategic Communications Consultancy
Author: Gregor Pfeifer
Date: 23/03/2010
africapractice, a pan-African strategic communications and environmental consultancy has been appointed to support the roll-out and communications for the Africa Carbon Asset Development (ACAD) Facility.
The Facility is a public-private partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UNEP’s Risoe Center, and Standard Bank, and the German Government’s International Climate Initiative. ACAD supports African carbon projects through a combination of technical assistance, grants and preferential access to corporate finance and transactional guidance.
“In order for ACAD to achieve its objective of market development, a lot of awareness still needs to be raised across sub-Saharan Africa”, said Glenn Hodes, Senior Program Manager for Clean Energy and Carbon Finance at UNEP Risoe, “and africapractice is in a unique position to support ACAD based on its regional reach, its understanding of the carbon market, and its experience in working with African business and the financial sector. “
One of the key challenges Africa faces is in removing investment barriers to low-carbon sustainable development. Combined with traditional debt or equity finance, carbon finance is a promising means of attracting funding for energy and infrastructure projects. ACAD takes a new approach toward capacity and market development, sharing costs and risks with African banks to realize and replicate projects.
“We are excited about this development in our relationship with UNEP and ACAD,” said Kim Polley, Director, Southern Africa at africapractice.“ It brings together our communications and environmental expertise to increase Africa’s share in the global carbon market - which is estimated to reach up to $2 trillion globally. We were one of the first consultancies to promote the African carbon market back in 2005 and working with ACAD is a logical expansion of our work in carbon finance and sustainability.”
ACAD has recently made its first grant awards including to the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya and the Lagos Waste Management Authority in Nigeria. In addition to supporting further projects this year, the facility program includes training activities for local banks and local entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa and a second Carbon Finance Bankers Forum is planned for late October in Johannesburg.
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For further information please contact:
Kim Polley
Tel: 082 768 9727