Unlocking Private Investments for Urban Solar Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa
Period: March 2025
Client / context: Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA) / GIZ, in partnership with Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM)
Location: Brussels, Belgium
From left to right: Vanessa Vovor, Country Manager at GIZ CoM SSA; Andy Deacon, Co-Managing Director at GCoM; Yodit Zeggay, Head of Project at GIZ CoM SSA; Lars Gronvald, Team Leader at DG INTPA; and Mouctar Bah, President of the Brussels Africa Hub. © GIZ
CONTEXT
Over 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to electricity. On-grid rooftop solar for public buildings is technically viable, economically attractive and politically significant — but private investment remains stuck behind a persistent combination of governance risk, unclear business models and the perception that African cities are unreliable partners. The CoM SSA programme had spent two years developing an investment-ready project pipeline through its Urban Smart Energy approach: 41 fully assessed sites across Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon and Ghana, with complete technical and financial modelling. The challenge was getting the right private sector actors and financiers in the room to see it — and creating the conditions for real dialogue rather than another policy event.
MY ROLE
I served as MC and session moderator for the full-day high-level event, responsible for the overall programme flow, tone and energy. The goal I held throughout was to keep the conversation anchored in the concrete: not abstract discussions about Africa's potential, but specific projects, specific numbers, specific barriers, and what it would take to move. I moderated a focused session on unlocking the financing and implementation of urban solar rooftop projects, bringing together the director of the Urban Transitions Mission, the impact finance specialist at KOIS, GIZ's Urban Smart Energy lead, the Chief Commercial Officer at Empower, and ICLEI's Head of Innovative Finance. The session was structured to present the live pipeline directly to investors and developers and open honest dialogue about what was blocking commitment.
The room included the European Commission (DG INTPA), Triple Jump, KOIS, BASE Foundation, SolarPower Europe and the Brussels Africa Hub: a mix of public institutions, impact investors and private developers that rarely occupies the same space with the same level of candour.
WHAT CAME OUT OF IT
A substantive, action-oriented dialogue between public urban programmes and private finance actors — with the project pipeline at the centre rather than policy frameworks
Expressions of interest from private sector participants in the CoM SSA pipeline
Public commitment from DG INTPA (European Commission) to link Global Gateway financing tools to city-level solar projects through CoM SSA
A replicable convening model: city-level, technically assessed, investment-ready projects presented directly to finance actors - moving the conversation from 'potential' to 'pipeline'
© GIZ
