4 September 2008: The Senegalese Agency for Rural
Electrification (ASER) and the World Bank have entered into an agreement for
the provision of 1.5 million compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) to Senegal’s
rural areas. The project will be carried out as a Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM) programme of activities, and is Senegal’s first CDM project.

Under the
agreement, ASER’s Energy Efficient Lighting Programme, which is a component of
its rural electrification plan, will provide the lamps for installation once
the targeted rural communities are electrified. According to Joëlle Chassard,
manager of the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Unit, “the ASER Energy Efficient
Lighting Programme sets an example for a new approach to make energy access
more affordable and in the process scale up carbon finance in Africa. It paves
the way for the development of new programs focusing on sectoral intervention
at a national or regional level which will use carbon finance to catalyze
low-carbon energy projects.”
The
agreement signed by ASER and World Bank provides that ASER will sell 120,000
tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions reductions achieved by the use
of the CFLs, to the Community Development Carbon Fund, a partnership of nine
governments and 16 countries managed by the World Bank. [World Bank Announcement] [World
Bank Press Release]