Acumen Fund formalises relationship with GCF, its partner for East African distributed solar power

Acumen Fund, Inc., the not-for-profit global investment fund, has become the first GCF private sector accredited entity to formalise its relationship with the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Acumen Fund has signed an Accreditation Master Agreement (AMA) with GCF, becoming the sixth accredited entity to do so. Its signing means that Acumen can now receive financial resources from GCF.

The Acumen Fund was founded in 2001 as a charitable venture capital fund, with the aim on the idea of creating a global investment fund for the poor. Supported by philanthropists, it makes debt or equity investments in early-stage, for-profit enterprises that serve low-income populations with high quality goods and services in the Agriculture, Education, Energy, and Health sectors.

GCF has already approved the first project proposal from Acumen: to invest in companies along the off-grid energy value chain to drive access to off-grid solar power in East Africa for low income consumers. The project proposes to provide solar technologies to rural, off-grid communities, initially in Rwanda and Kenya. The GCF Board agreed to provide USD 25 million of the Fund's resources to this project as part of its initial investment decisions, taken at the end of 2015.

The signing of the AMA with Acumen is an important step towards finalizing these investments.

An accreditation master agreement is the central instrument in the relationship between GCF and an Accredited Entity. It sets out the basic terms and conditions as to how the accredited entity and GCF can work together for the use of GCF resources.

Acumen Fund was accredited by the Green Climate Fund as part of the first wave of accreditations, in March 2015. There are now 33 entities accredited to work with GCF.

Acumen is the first private sector entity to sign an AMA with GCF, joining the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Agency for Agricultural Development (ADA) of Morocco, Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), Centre de Suivi Écologique (CSE) of Senegal, and Environmental Investment Fund (EIF) of Namibia.

Other accredited entities are in the process of finalizing their AMAs with the Fund.

Re-issued on 17 June for technical reasons