Projects and companies that meet the eligibility criteria can be evaluated for support. For applications from projects or companies in our Country Windows, eligibility criteria may differ, reflecting programme priorities of GET.invest donors. For details, please refer to the respective Country Window pages for Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

Focus on clean energy solutions and business models

The majority of the investment sought must be directly related to clean energy or energy efficiency. This includes the following:

• electricity generation, transmission and distribution for grid-connected power, as well as mini-grids
• solar-powered stand-alone systems and off-grid appliances, including for productive uses
• clean cooking, excluding production and trading of LPG for cooking
• green hydrogen/PtX and derivatives
• energy storage solutions
• energy efficient appliances and energy efficiency for commercial or industrial application
• e-mobility
• projects or companies focused on clean energy manufacturing, hardware assembly or value addition e.g. solar panels, electric vehicles, appliances, cookstoves
• the use or production of biofuels in the demonstrated absence of land-use conflicts (incl. with regards to food production).
• While funds and financing instruments are generally not considered eligible, financing structures to pool or bundle concrete individual investments can be considered.

Investment size

Our tailored advisory facilities are designed to accommodate both large-scale and smaller projects and companies seeking investment. In your application it will be important to clarify whether you are seeking corporate finance or project finance as these will be considered differently during both the eligibility review and evaluation stages.

• A company investment (corporate finance) provides funding to an entire company, with lenders or investors relying on the firm’s overall balance sheet, assets, and diversified revenue streams, typically involving multiple financing rounds. We can support companies seeking a minimum of 500,000 EUR in investment.
• A project finance investment is structured around a specific project, with repayment based solely on that project’s cash flows and assets. This non-recourse structure involves extensive project-level due diligence and usually spans a longer financing horizon. We can support projects raising a minimum of 5,000,000 EUR.

Note: While we can support requests with a grant component, we do not support projects or companies that solely rely on grant funding. As part of our advisory, we validate the amount and type of funding sought and engage with our clients to develop a comprehensive and long-term investment strategy that caters to their needs and potential.

Furthermore, both projects or companies applying for our advisory support will need to prove an advanced stage of development or growth by uploading mandatory documents listed below.

For projects seeking project finance, advanced stage of development means at least four of the following project milestones have been achieved (including at least two of the mandatory criteria (*)):

• conducted third party confirmatory resource measurements (wind, hydrology, solar irradiation, bioenergy supply)*
• site identified and secured*
• completed technical pre-feasibility studies, including grid connection studies and environmental and social impact studies*
• signed memorandum of understanding or equivalent with government ministries/agencies regarding project*
• created base case financial model*
• risk assessment conducted
• permits identified which are required for project / licenses/permits approved
• established legal entity
• identified equipment/technology suppliers / EPC contractor selected
• identified sources of project development funds or development partner.

For companies seeking corporate finance, advanced stage of growth means you are able to demonstrate at least the following investment readiness milestones:

• company registration
• basic business plan or pitch deck
• financial projections aligned to growth prospects
• recent management accounts or financial statements, preferably audited, demonstrating a minimum of 100,000 EUR in revenue over the period of the last 24 months.

Location

Applicants must be located in (or investment sought to be deployed in) sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, or the Pacific region. Eligibility is further limited to countries included on the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) List of ODA Recipients; applications from countries not on this list cannot be considered.

Focus on private sector

Eligible applicants include private sector developers and companies, parastatal companies and governments. Ultimately, applications will need to demonstrate significant private-sector ownership or intended involvement to allow for financing with debt or equity, possibly combined with other funding such as grants or public contributions. Such private sector engagement can also be developed during the advisory support, e.g. in case projects are initially proposed by public actors.

Completeness

Applications that are incomplete or that do not provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate their eligibility will be declared ineligible.