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ADFD's 2020 allocations for clean-energy projects hit $169m

ABU DHABI, January 21, 2021

Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, one of the UAE’s leading financial entities, continued to advance its sustainable development agenda within the country and abroad through clean-energy initiatives, in 2020 with its total project allocations surging to AED622 million ($169 million).
 
Notwithstanding challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Fund completed five crucial renewable energy projects in five partner countries, including Cuba, Somaliland, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. 
 
The projects worth AED117.3 million not just enabled the countries to reduce their carbon footprint by infusing a total of 14.38MW into the energy mix, but they also brought about a host of economic benefits.
 
ADFD Director General Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi said these projects highlighted the fund’s strong commitment towards fostering socioeconomic growth in the developing world through sustainable initiatives.
 
"We doubled our effort to ensure that we delivered the projects to our partner countries, especially during such a time of crisis. The aim was to help them maintain their economic and social-development trajectories by enabling them to meet developmental challenges during the pandemic," he noted. 
 
"These projects also underscored the Fund’s preparedness and ability to deal with any difficulties," he said.
 
"Renewable projects remain high on our agenda as their impact is felt on multiple levels, from commerce to the environment. Moreover, the turbulence in 2020 forced us to focus on what really matters, while it made all of us realise the value of partnership and cooperation," he added.
 
In January last year, ADFD announced an allocation of AED384 million ($104.5 million) to eight renewable-energy initiatives under the seventh cycle of its partnership with the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena). 
 
It signed three loan agreements worth AED121 million (US$33 million) with the West African nations of Togo, Niger and Liberia. In July, it financed a waste-to-energy project in the Maldives, which earned a certification from Global Innovation Institute (GINI), a leading international professional certification, accreditation and membership association in the field of innovation.
 
Under the facility, eight projects were to be funded in Antigua and Barbuda, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cuba, the Maldives, Nepal, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The announcement brought cumulative funding to AED1.28 billion ($350 million), in line with the commitment made by ADFD across seven funding cycles to Irena recommended projects.
 
The Fund also delivers its impact through the AED183.65 million (US$50 million) UAE-Caribbean Renewable Energy Fund (UAE-CREF) that it finances with an aim to deliver renewable energy projects across 16 Caribbean Island nations to help reduce reliance on fossil-fuel imports, increase energy access and enhance climate change resilience. Launched in 2017, the UAE-CREF is the largest renewable energy initiative of its kind in the Caribbean region.-TradeArabia News Service



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