Driving Private Investment In Power Africa

WASHINGTON - Aug. 7, 2014 - PRLog -- In collaboration with the United States Department of Commerce, the Initiative for Global Development (IGD) today convened a panel of top CEOs and senior executives from IGD member companies for a roundtable discussion on driving investment in Power Africa. This panel is part of the invitation-only event titled “Driving Investment in Power Africa,” which also included a presentation of the initial results of the Department of Commerce’s Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) consultations. The panel was attended by government officials and private sector leaders in Washington, D.C. for the U.S-Africa Leaders Summit from August 4 – 7.

Participating  IGD member companies, include ContourGlobal, Symbion Power, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), General Electric Company (GE), Standard Chartered Bank, and Press Corporation Limited (PCL). The business panel focused on the specific challenges businesses face in the African power market. The company representatives shared examples of how they have seen the investment environment change, as well as examples of the difficulties they encounter in negotiating, concluding, and implementing PPAs. The participating companies are members of IGD’s working group, which came together to create a new power development approach that will dramatically shorten the time between conceptual need identification and commercial operation date for new power facilities.

“As a founding partner of Power Africa, IGD is honored to be co-hosting this event. The U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit this week is a great milestone in U.S-Africa relations and it is critical for the private sector to be driving and participating in the success of Power Africa,” said Mima Nedelcovych, moderator of the business panel session and IGD’s President & CEO.

The U.S Department of Commerce is dedicated to promoting trade and investment around the world. As part of President Obama’s Power Africa Initiative, the Department of Commerce is focused on driving investment into power generation projects in Africa. Specifically, it is providing technical assistance to African governments through the Office of the General Counsel’s Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP). At IGD’s urging and continuing support, CLDP, with support from USAID, is currently working with government and private sector stakeholders in Sub-Saharan Africa to streamline the project development process through the annotation and explanation of core provisions in power purchase agreements (PPAs) and related documents.

With IGD’s Chairman Robert Mosbacher Jr., participating as a key advisor, CLDP has hosted a successful meeting with twenty leading attorneys and two consultations in Africa to solicit the perspectives of government stakeholders in Nigeria and Tanzania. The PPA Annotation handbook is to be published this fall and the initial results were presented to participants at the “Driving Investment in Power Africa” event today.