Investors developing private solar projects in Africa have been deterred from entering the market by obstacles such as high transaction costs, heavily negotiated agreements, high risk and the cost of capital. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) Scaling Solar Programme was initiated to de-risk the bidding process and to enable project developers to compete on a “like-for-like” basis. The IFC’s investment facilitation platform offered a suite of financing and advisory under a single engagement to also attract globally competitive project developers in a challenging environment. Zambia was the first country to officially engage IFC in its programme to explore the development of two large-scale solar projects in July 2015. This paper looks at some design features, key results and lessons learned.
Case study: IFC’s Scaling Solar Programme, Zambia
This work was carried out under the Infrastructure and Cities for Economic Development (ICED) facility.
ICED supported DFID country offices, central teams and ODA-spending Other Government Departments to deliver DFID’s Economic Development Strategy by scaling up programming and investment in infrastructure and cities. It operated between February 2016 and July 2019.
