AFRICA NEWS
The International Finance Corporation ( IFC ) has partnered with Gaia Energy , which is a Moroccan company , to establish a joint platform for the development of wind power and renewable energy projects in Africa .
Confirming the news was Moundir Zniber , founder and president of the company , who said that IFC ’ s expertise in financial structuring and mobilisation , as well as its environmental and social safeguards , ideally complements Gaia ’ s tailor-made approach to developing projects in new markets like Africa .
The joint platform will be created by IFC InfraVentures , a USD150-million global infrastructure project development fund . The project will also be funded by a USD133-million Finland – IFC Blended Finance for Climate Programme .
The new platform will build a pipeline of 22 projects in nine African countries . Generally , renewable energy is a priority area identified in the World Bank Group ’ s strategy , which will help in advancing the climate solutions led by the private sector .
IFC is a World Bank financial institution that encourages private-sector development in developing countries .
https :// cleantechnica . com
Gaia Energy has partnered with the International Finance Corporation for the development of renewable energy in Africa .
Speaking to construction industry stakeholders at a recent AfriSam breakfast briefing on the State of the South African Construction Industry , industry insight senior economist David Metelerkamp said that the civils sector was bearing the brunt of the construction downturn , and companies reported the worst levels of confidence since the early 1990s .
“ Over the past 18 months , there has been a significant decline in the value of tenders awarded ,” he says , pointing to a 26 % decrease in the value of projects over the past year .
He highlighted that order books across the civils sector remain flat , and even dropped in recent months , possibly as a result of President Cyril Ramaphosa ’ s planned clean-up of the state-owned enterprises which had in some instances delayed expenditure . But he saw more efficient SOEs as a positive factor in the medium- to long term for civils .
“ Conditions will remain tough this year , which will possibly be the worst year for the civils sector ,” he said , “ but we are expecting some improvement next year and the following year .”
The civils sector had experienced poor annual growth levels for many years up to 2016 , after which its performance had worsened further with five consecutive quarters of negative growth . Some good news came recently with Energy Minister Jeff Radebe ’ s interventions to progress 27 independent power producer agreements ; Metelerkamp noted that civils contractors would have to rely more on private sector contracts like these . There might also be good news in store as the next national election looms , with an election run-up often coinciding with the issuing of more government tenders .
In the interests of transforming the sector , government has also been breaking up large infrastructure projects into smaller pieces , to allow greater access by small contractors ; these smaller players have therefore taken over a substantial portion of market share from larger contractors .
AfriSam ’ s chief executive officer Rob Wessels emphasised the positive role that construction plays in creating employment . Wessels said that while construction contributes around 3 % of gross domestic product , it employs roughly 9 % of South Africa ’ s labour force . The sector employs about 1.4 million of South Africa ’ s total workforce of about 16.3-million people .
6
OCTOBER 2018