MCFA is launching its second Call for Proposals, inviting interested private companies selling modern and clean cooking solutions to compete for funding. MCFA offers a combination of results-based financing, non-reimbursable catalytic grant financing and technical assistance to companies active in the clean cooking market to support them to further expand and scale up their businesses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The first call was launched on March 23, 2003 and was for 12 million Euros by the Swedish Ambassador Johan Hallenborg at his Residence and supported by Jacek Jankowski, the EU Ambassador to Zambia.
“To answer the demand for much-needed financial support in the clean cooking sector, we are launching our second funding round. The new Call for Proposals has been tailored to better meet the needs of companies operating in the sector. Together with our funded companies, donors and partners, our aim is to accelerate the creation of long-term sustainable markets in Sub-Saharan Africa to support access to clean and modern cooking solutions for 4 million people,” comments Heli Sinkko, Programme Manager at Nefco.
The new MCFA funding round will be divided into two funding windows combining results-based financing and catalytic grant financing. The total available funding for both windows will be up to EUR 16 million and the individual ticket sizes will vary from EUR 500,000 to 2.5 million.
Applicants can be experienced providers of clean cooking services for residential, commercial or institutional use, utilities, mini-grid operators or companies deploying standalone solar systems that could support e-cooking services in conjunction with their main operations. The Catalytic Funding Window will be targeted at earlier stage companies with scaling potential. Of the requested MCFA financing within this window, 50% will be provided in the form of non-reimbursable catalytic grants and available to companies in the DRC, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Scale-up Funding Window will be open to more mature companies in all project countries under terms similar to those of the first MCFA funding round, but with Malawi introduced as a new target country. This window will provide up to 30% of available funding in the form of non-reimbursable catalytic grants and the rest as results-based financing. The new funding round will continue to support only higher-tier cooking solutions, including electric cookstoves and cookstoves that use sustainably produced solid and liquid biofuels or biogas solutions. Lack of clean cooking solutions is a global challenge and one of the key sectors in Africa for accelerating the green energy transition. Globally, some 2.3 billion people lack access to clean cooking, of which some 900 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa. In most of the MCFA target countries, the current access rate to clean cooking is less than 20%.
The National Authorising Office (NAO) of the European Development Fund (EDF) is an office in the Economic Management Department in the Ministry of Finance. It assists the National Authorising Officer (NAO) and his deputies in fulfilling, in co-ordination with the Delegation of the European Commission in Zambia, Government responsibilities as defined in Annex IV Article 35 of the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement. The agreement empowers the Governments of ACP countries to appoint a National Authorising Officer who represents them as contracting agency at the national level in all programmes and measures financed under the EDF.
The Modern Cooking Facility for Africa is a multi-donor facility established and managed by Nefco – the Nordic Green Bank – with the aim to support the development of new markets for the clean cooking sector and accelerate access to high technology, modern and affordable cooking equipment for consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa. It combines results-based financing with catalytic grant financing to companies active in the clean cooking market to grow and scale up their businesses in the programme countries.
The facility finances projects in seven countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The overall aim of the MCFA programme is to provide access to clean cooking solutions for up to 4 million Africans. The current EUR 61.5 million MCFA programme was announced in November 2021 and is funded by Sweden, Norway, and the European Union; it forms part of the Global Gateway initiative, a new European strategy to boost smart and clean projects that combine public and private financing.