National child project under the GEF Africa Mini-grids Program Burkina Faso Supporting access to clean energy by increasing the financial viability and promoting scaled-up commercial investment in minigrids in Burkina Faso Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency. When the underlying investment risks are mitigated through the project’s cost-reduction levers and innovative business models, it will result in competitiveness and financial viability of renewable energy minigrids, which will have considerable socioeconomic effect directly and through ripple effects both the national and local level.  The capacity building activities and policy and regulatory outputs under component 1 will benefit all people living in Burkina Faso at large and also those living in the projects target rural communities.     The socioeconomic benefits of the project are considerable at both the national and local level. Increased access to sustainable energy from low carbon minigrids will impact agriculture, one of of Burkina Faso’s main economic sectors. The country’s economy is predominantly dependent on the agricultural sector, which accounts for roughly 40% of GDP. The sector employs 75% of the total population while over 80% of the rural population depend mainly on small-scale subsistence farming as their main source for sustenance and revenues. The sector is however, characterized by low productivity owing to the fact it is mostly rain-fed, thus highly subject to adverse impacts of climate change such as erratic rainy seasons, variable rainfalls, floods, droughts, bush fires and other extreme events. Under component 2.1, both pilot porjects will address productive uses, mainly the agriculture value-chain (production and post-harvest) through irrigation and electricity for food storage and processing.     The primary targets and actors of the pilot projects will be small scale farmers (women and youth, mostly) who will benefit directly from the electricity supplied by the solar minigrids. As explained in the development challenge section, poor rural populations, of which over 80% are active in the agricultural sector, are faced with problems of accessibility, cost, sustainability and quality of power supply as well as difficulties in accessing financing for the acquisition of efficient productive equipment. This results in high-post harvest losses in value-chains such as mango, horticulture, milk, rice, sorghum, fish, meat, etc. due to lack of electricity.    As the PPG phase took place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became also apparent that a key additional objective of the pilot projects would be to contribute to the GoBF’s COVID-19 response and recovery, and to increase the resilience of vulnerable populations. The pilot project, by focusing on productive use of renewable energy for agriculture, SMEs and health facilities, will support Burkina Faso’s COVID-19 response and recovery efforts. In particular, the most vulnerable populations (women, youth, smallholder farmers, etc.) will be supported to recover from the dire socio-economic impacts of the pandemic and to build their resilience to futures shocks (climate, sanitary, etc.). As such, the pilots have been designed in such a way that they will present the following characteristics:  · Support green recovery including investments in sustainable, inclusive, resilient, low-carbon, low-polluting, nature positive and circular economy-based pathways for poor communities to withstand future shocks coming from climate change, natural and manmade disasters, and other global challenges.   · Support climate change adaptation projects through resilient livelihoods and infrastructure to support green recovery and future resilience.   · Enhance engagement of the private sector as well as opportunities for accelerating low-carbon businesses thereby offering a pathway toward green recovery efforts.  · Build the resilience of small vulnerable rural communities through solar PV minigrids in a market-based approach.  · Support gender mainstreaming where women’s specific needs are taken into consideration. More importantly, women and other vulnerable groups will be involved /trained    When solar minigrids with storage become more competitive against diesel-based alternatives, this will crowd-in private investment, thus ushering in various development benefits such as: increased investment, GHG emission reductions, increased rural electrification for poor rural communities, lower tariffs for end-users, etc.   The implementation of the various outputs will benefits high number of people and institutions that are important to Burkina Faso’s socioeconomic growth:  11,033 direct beneficiaries (5,516 male beneficiaries and 5,517 female beneficiaries);  10,639 residential beneficiaries (individuals);  260 people (commercial);   134 people (social)  70 primary jobs in minigrid development (women 25 and men 45)  20 primary jobs created in minigrids operation (women 10 and men 10)  400 primary jobs in productive use (women 260 and men 140)    From a gender equity perspective, the project will fully support the socio-economic development of vulnerable populations such as women, youth and small-holder farmers. The gender strategy will consist of targeting women and youth-led income generating activities (vegetable farms, processing of peanuts, shea, sesame, forest fruits) and SMEs led by youth grinding, milling, internet shops..    The overall program is expected to mitigate about 14,383 direct tCO2e and 747,000 indirect tCO2e. The emission reductions will emanate from pilot project investments (Output 2.1) and indirect emission mitigation, from creating a general enabled investment environment, and subsequent investment flows.  Moreover, significant indirect emission mitigation is expected from the project over its 4-year implementation timeframe and with a further 10-year post-project period.