CARICOM energy financing meeting opens today in Suriname

Sustainable financing for the Region’s energy sector will come under the microscope today in Suriname, where CARICOM partners will hold a Stakeholder workshop.

The CARICOM Secretariat and the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF), in collaboration with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), will convene the two-day workshop in Paramaribo. A release from the CARICOM Secretariat said that the workshop will review the main design elements of a newly proposed Credit Risk Abatement Facility (CRAF) for the energy sector.

The release said that to date, the work on the CRAF project has engaged a wide range of regional stakeholders.

The CRAF deals with a major challenge that is linked to the significant unmet demand for energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE) within the Region, namely the need for credit risk abatement to facilitate access to financing for related projects.

Accordingly, the CDF and its implementing and strategic partners - CARICOM Secretariat, Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and GIZ - are moving to finalise and implement the CRAF. This will be done within the second phase of the project, which will see the preparation of a detailed design, fundraising, and the inception

work required for launching and operationalising the CRAF.

The release said that this high-level forum of regional partners is expected to achieve consensus on the main design elements of the CRAF, to include: (i) The Credit Risk Instrument; (ii) A proposed Technical Assistance Facility for project preparation; and (iii) The Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for gauging performance.

Phase 1 of the CRAF project, which ends with the validation of the CRAF Model and Design, is funded under the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Technical Assistance (REETA) programme. The second phase of the project is expected to receive funding under the Technical Assistance Programme for Sustainable Energy in the Caribbean (TAPSEC).

The release said that TAPSEC is funded by the European Union (EU) under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF11), and cofunded with an additional financial allocation from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).