DFID promotes solar PV micro-finance initiative

The UK government’s latest development plan for Africa aims to establish a commercially viable way of providing power to people living without access to electricity. But the Department for International Development (DFID), which is promoting the Energy Africa scheme, is still at the early stages in explaining how it will work. International development minister Grant Shapps told the Business Council for Africa in London on 17 November that Energy Africa would be based on small-scale commercial relationships designed to survive once support from development funding had ceased.