The financing program Modern Cooking Facility for Africa (MCFA) has announced that it has signed its first agreement with clean cooking service provider Lanforce Energy one of the leading biogas companies in Zimbabwe offering biodigesters for households, farmers, entrepreneurs and institutions.
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MCFA financing will mobilize additional co-financing, doubling the amount of provided MCFA support by the end of the project implementation.
The Modern Cooking Facility for Africa (MCFA) supports access to and scale-up of higher-tier clean cooking solutions.
The first funding round (MCFA1) in spring 2022 received significant interest in all project countries, with EUR 30.8 million in total financing.
First MCFA investee
A women-owned and led company in Zimbabwe selling biogas digesters to support the scale-up of clean and modern cooking solutions in rural and peri-urban areas of the country, Lanforce Energy was selected competitively under the Zimbabwe country program.
The selection process included a two-stage third-party evaluation of applications by independent experts and a detailed due diligence process carried out by Danish Energy Management A/S in consortium with LFS Advisory.
I’m extremely happy to announce our first MCFA investee in our mission to introduce modern cooking solutions and create long-term sustainable markets in several Sub-Saharan African countries. We are especially pleased to support finance for women entrepreneurs and to welcome Lanforce Energy as our first portfolio company, comments Ash Sharma, VP at Nefco and Head of MCFA.
Further agreements with clean cooking companies are under negotiation and will be announced during autumn 2023.
Scale-up and expand
With the results-based financing provided by MCFA, the company aims to scale up its business activities by selling approximately 2,400 new biodigesters, which would total over 6,000 clean cooking services, as some of the biodigesters can cater for multiple stoves, for example, several households sharing one biodigester.
To be able to scale up our business with support from MCFA is a dream come true in our endeavour to uplift women and children, especially girls, in Zimbabwe, said Judith Marera, CEO of Lanforce Energy.
Lanforce Energy currently operates in 26 districts and with the financing from MCFA, the company plans to extend its operational activities to an additional 24 districts.
The new activities are expected to benefit up to 28,000 Zimbabweans in the rural and peri-urban areas of the country.
Growing up in Zimbabwe as a young girl, it was my socially ascribed gender role to fetch firewood and provide for the fuel needs of the family. It took up a lot of my time, some of which was supposed to be for study and channeled to other productive activities. This obviously affected my performance at school, and when I look back this could easily have been prevented if we had used modern cooking solutions such as biogas. By providing technical assistance, advocating policies, raising awareness, and building partnerships, MCFA is helping to make biogas a more affordable and accessible option for people in Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole, Judith Marera explained.
The biodigesters offered by Lanforce Energy include stoves and burners, are easy to operate, portable, and available in different sizes depending on the customer’s needs.
All parts of the biodigesters are replaceable and their expected lifespan is about 20 years, depending on the care and maintenance provided.
PAYGO system
Biodigesters are equipped with stove-use monitoring meters to provide data on biogas consumption.
Customers can pay for the biodigesters in installments over an agreed period of time using the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) system, making the products more affordable and accessible to the Zimbabwean population.
Lanforce Energy is an innovative company aiming for large scale-up opportunities, helping to improve health, reducing deforestation in a large part of the country, and supporting the empowerment of women in Zimbabwe by leading by example, commented Aliona Fomenco, Investment Manager at Nefco.
Biodigesters contribute to reducing organic waste, from cultivation and cooking, and greenhouse gas emissions, and turn the organic waste into clean energy by providing biogas for cooking as well as other productive-use appliances, such as lighting, heating, and refrigeration.
The biogas produced from biodigesters mainly reduces the use of firewood, which decreases pollution, improves indoor air quality, and decreases deforestation.
