MWE has been approached by BRILHO to be part of the Steering Committee of the Program and is currently in the process of drafting a Memorandum of Understanding with BRILHO to support the scaling up of Women Businesses.
BRILHO is a five-year sustainable energy programme, 2019 - 2024, that will catalyse Mozambique’s off-grid energy market in order to provide clean and affordable energy solutions to the country’s off-grid population. It is funded by the British Government's Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the programs main objective is to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) in Mozambique by improving and increasing energy access for people and businesses, and leveraging the private sector’s innovation and investment capacity, in hopes of resulting in the market growth of clean cooking solutions, solar home systems, and mini-grids.
BRILHO offers selected companies a unique mix of structured non-reimbursable funding (Catalytic Grants and Results-Based Financing) and up to £1.5 million in specialized support, to de-risk business initiatives aiming to achieve competitive commercial returns and provide off-grid energy solutions. The program launched its first call for proposals on February 12, 2020, and in just 3 months, 64 business initiatives were submitted: 19% of which focused on green mini-grids, 38% on Solar Home Systems, 19% on Improved Cooking Solutions and 24% proposing a combination of these technologies. After the first evaluation process, 29 of these initiatives were invited to develop and submit a proposal including a complete business plan. So far, the investment approval process, which is carried out by an independent panel, has selected 15 business initiatives for contract signing. Currently, 10 companies have already signed a contract and have started implementing it. The initiatives take approximately 2.5 years to implement and have the potential to benefit thousands of Mozambican families and activate, through various small businesses, the local economy and industry. By the end of 2024, business initiatives supported by the BRILHO programme are expected to provide access to off-grid clean energy solutions to over 1 million Mozambicans and about 15,000 local businesses.
To read more on BRILHO’s contribution to the Mozambican off-grid energy market, you can click on the following links: https://snv.org/update/brilho-boosting-companies-and-lighting-lives and at Brillho Website
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