UK Prosperity Fund announces Southern Africa projects for 2016/17
UK Prosperity Fund supports projects in Sustainable Urban Development, Public Private Partnerships and Renewable Energy in Southern Africa.
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s programme funds seek to create real, measurable outcomes in support of the FCO’s policy goals. Since 2011, the Prosperity Fund has supported the FCO’s Prosperity Priority on opening markets, ensuring access to resources, and promoting sustainable global growth, mainly in the emerging powers.
The 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review announced a £1.3bn Prosperity Fund over the next 5 years to promote the economic reform and development needed for growth in partner countries. Our priorities will include improving the business climate, competitiveness and operation of markets, energy and financial sector reform, and increasing the ability of partner countries to tackle corruption. As well as contributing to a reduction in poverty in recipient countries, we expect these reforms to create opportunities for international business including UK companies.
The role of the Fund is also set out in the UK aid strategy, Tackling Global Challenges in the National Interest. The Prosperity Fund will form a small but integral element of the UK’s total Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment of 0.7% of GNI. It will primarily be focused on ODA eligible middle income countries, contributing to poverty reduction and complementing DFID’s work in poorer countries. In this way, the Fund will contribute towards meeting the new Sustainable Development Goals. ODA spend under the Fund will be fully consistent with OECD DAC criteria.
The UK Prosperity Fund has agreed to support 8 projects in Southern Africa. These are all ambitious projects to boost inclusive growth and sustainable economic development through interventions in power, infrastructure, cities, skills and transparency in priority countries in the SADC region.
Sustainable Urban Development
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Supporting South Africa’s economic growth by developing sustainable transport solutions for large scale events such as the Durban 2022 Commonwealth Games led by Mott MacDonald. It aims to develop best practice guidance in transport planning for South African large events, building on UK experiences.
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Strengthening the capacity of the City of Pemba, Mozambique to attract sustainable urban investment by Adam Smith International. The project aim is to improve the Pemba City Council’s knowledge of technical issues and ability to negotiate with investors in the extractives sector.
Public Private Partnerships
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Supporting South Africa’s infrastructure needs by providing training for municipal leaders in public-private partnerships by NEPAD Business Foundation. This will enable municipalities to develop and implement bankable infrastructure projects using blended finance from private, public and development sectors.
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Enhancing urban planning capability in Angola through improved public-private partnership skills and awareness of anti-corruption tools through British Expertise. The project will enhance urban planning capability in Luanda by providing UK expertise in smart, sustainable urban planning; public-private partnerships and anti-corruption best practice.
Renewable Energy
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Introducing innovative small-scale waste-to-energy technology and business model to South Africa working with The Waste Transformers.The project will open the power generation market in South Africa to small businesses, enabling them to operate small-scale waste-to-energy units on a commercial basis. It will lead to creation of ‘green’ jobs; increased power generation from renewable sources; and improved waste management.
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Carbon Trust integrating off-grid solutions to support South Africa’s rural electrification programme. The project will support the South African Department of Energy and Eskom in determining how off-grid electricity solutions can fit into South Africa’s electrification programme, with a view to stimulating investment into the sector and accelerating rural electrification and promoting access to energy.
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Development of renewable energy projects on mining impacted land and communities by Promethium Carbon. Rehabilitating former mining land in South Africa by demonstrating a model for community-based renewable energy projects. This will create jobs opportunities in former mining communities and help alleviate pressure on South Africa’s electricity grid.
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Northumbria Energy Limited demonstrating a solution for smart electricity grid management. This will support electricity grid management with South African partners through a demonstration of how a UK technology can stabilise the supply/demand balance, increase grid capacity and control operating costs.
Prosperity Fund contact in South Africa : sa.projects@fco.gov.uk.