ICLEI Africa in collaboration with the County Government of Kisumu, organized a 3-day training workshop on project development as part of the 100% Renewables Cities and Regions Roadmap project. As part of the project, Kisumu County is the deep-dive region, receiving extensive support, with Nakuru and Mombasa counties as network regions.

The overall aim of the project is to develop a realistic and sustainable roadmap towards 100% renewable energy, with further assistance in developing bankable projects to begin implementing this strategy.

The training, held at the Sovereign Hotel in Kisumu, was geared towards improving local capacities in order to develop bankable projects that will shorten the path from ideas to implementation, and facilitate the transition to 100% renewable energy (RE).

Some of the expected outcomes of the trainings were to: provide a background on the 100%RE project activities as it relates to project development, build capacity of city staff and provide a deeper understanding of the project development process leading to finance-ready proposals and project implementation, provide an overview of requirements for project bankability (checklist) and due diligence needed for renewable energy  and energy efficiency projects, and to present an opportunity for deeper engagement with city staff on the projects identified for the county.

Day 1 and 2 were hybrid in nature where there was in-person attendance, and online participants. On the first day, Dr. Azizat Gbadegesin from ICLEI Africa gave an overview of the eight project development stages and later delved into stage one and two on project identification and expert engagement.

On the second day, Rohit Sen from the ICLEI World Secretariat took the participants through the later stages of project development, which included: assessing options, early project finance, demonstrating feasibility, securing funding (bankability checklist, light touch due diligence), and procurement (enabling factors, project finance).

On Day 3, which was an online meeting, Rohit Sen gave a recap and led discussions on project finance (funding models), innovative climate finance, barriers to access climate finance, the transformative actions program and evaluation and closing.

While closing the workshop activities on Day 2, the county Chief Officer for Energy and Industrialization Mr. Joseph Oganga thanked ICLEI for their continued support and affirmed the Kisumu Governor’s commitment towards supporting the 100% Renewables Cities and Regions Roadmap project.