By Joyce Gyekye
Financial constraints are hindering green innovations in Africa as most countries put in measures to transition to clean energy as contained in their energy transition plans.
This year’s Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP 29, dubbed “ Finance on COP”, aims to secure the financial investment needed to reduce emissions among other objectives for developing countries to achieve their climate plans.
Dr Ferdinand Tornyie from the United Nations University, Ghana at a panel discussion presented how lack of funds is preventing the scaling up of innovations that could help African countries meet their energy transition goals.
Dr. Tornyie said due to lack of funds, a project that called for innovation proposals from Ghana, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire was able to fund only 30 out of 160 it had.
Ghana, he said, “had the highest number of 100 innovators sending their pitch that were green technologies that can power the agricultural sector and also help women to process their crops”.
But unfortunately, only ten were selected after shortlisting 30 whose capacities were built.
He said the ten innovators who had their pitch chosen will each receive 7,400 Dollars to pilot their technologies with the assistance of experts.
The technologies, which will be ready by the first quarter of 2025, would be piloted in the Central, Eastern, and Volta regions, with the best among them receiving 134,000 dollars to scale up the technology after the pilot project.
One of the innovations Dr Tornyie mentioned is a movable paddy rice machine that treshes rice to relieve women of the drudgery associated with it to the next processing level.
That machine was initially using diesel, but a percentage of that will be taken off and replaced with solar energy through mentorship until it gets to half each of the two different sources of energy.
Another innovation by a young woman is a different solar drier for cereals and other crops. The drier uses solar energy that incorporates a blower into the drying system that dries the crops faster.
The project has hired the services of experts who will help them in the promotional aspect of their products and also bring on board policy makers to learn and be able to influence policies that will help women in the energy transition plan.
Dr Tornyie, who attended COP 29 on OBSERVER status, called for more financial support as most of the 100 innovations that were pitched were good.
The Regional Manager of West and Central Africa of UN Capital Development Funds (UNCDF), Laura Munoz Perez, said the entity acknowledges the difficulties women, especially farmers, go through in assessing funds, and it’s ready to assist developing countries to mobilise funds to achieve their SDGs, including their energy transition goals.
She said the fund incentivises the private sector to invest in the energy transition sector by, for instance, financing energy transition projects like solar panels and clean cooking stoves and promising to bear the risks should something go wrong.
