Greentech in Africa: Opportunities for Sustainable Development

Amarquaye “Kwei” Armar is the World Bank’s Program Manager for ESMAP – a global knowledge and technical assistance partnership administered by the World Bank and co-sponsored by thirteen official bilateral donors. Prior to his appointment as Program Manager, he was Lead Energy Specialist in the World Bank’s Energy Anchor. In that capacity, he was extensively engaged in power market reform operations in Romania and Bosnia & Herzegovina under the Economic Community of South-Eastern Europe Project. He was also the World Bank Team Leader for regional power pool development projects in support of the Economic Community of West African States and the Eastern Africa Community. Between 1996 and 2000, he took a leave of absence from the World Bank to serve as Energy Policy Advisor at the Ghana Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. Mr. Armar holds a Masters Degree from the MIT Technology and Policy Program, and a Bachelor’s Degree with First Class Honors in Chemical Engineering and Fuel Technology from the University of Sheffield, UK.

Erik co-founded E+Co’s carbon finance program. In addition to overseeing the work of carbon finance staff, Erik developed some of the world’s first Gold Standard-accredited carbon finance projects involving household efficient cook stove technology in Ghana, Mali and South Africa.  In addition, Erik was instrumental in forging E+Co’s carbon finance partnership with Goldman Sachs.

E+Co is a non-profit financial services company helping to create viable, sustainable businesses to end world poverty while protecting the planet. E+Co provides capital and business development training to small and medium sized enterprises that champion sustainable energy technologies in developing countries. With eight offices around the globe, including three in Africa, E+Co has invested in some 250 companies since 1994.

Prior to joining E+Co, Erik worked as a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme’s sustainable energy department. From 2000 to 2002, Erik was a consultant for Energy Saving International, a Norway-based company that specializes in energy efficiency consulting in the Russian Federation and Eastern Europe. He has conducted field work in various capacities in Cuba, Nepal, Ghana, Mali, South Africa and Costa Rica. Early in his career, he worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Erik holds a Master s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Dr. Mima S. Nedelcovych is the Director for Business Development and Government Relations for Buchanan Renewables and has served until recently as the Country Director in Liberia. Buchanan Renewables (BR) is a Geneva based company focused on the development of renewable bio energy fuel sources in African countries for exports to the developed world, as well as the production of electricity in the supplying countries. As Country Director, he was responsible for the oversight of all of the activities conducted by BR in Liberia, with a particular focus on a large project in Liberia where redundant, post economic life rubber trees are being felled and chipped, creating a biomass product both for export markets (fuel, pulp and board industry) and for supplying the fuel for a 36 MW power station that is being built in the outskirts of Monrovia.  The old trees being felled are systematically replaced with new young ones, thus also rejuvenating the national rubber industry

 

Prior to joining BR in 2008, Dr. Nedelcovych was Managing Director of the Schaffer Global Group (SGG) a Baton Rouge, Louisiana based project development, finance and implementation firm focused on the emerging markets of Africa and the Americas. Dr. Nedelcovych, who continues to be on the SGG Board, was responsible for corporate and country clients, heading up all international financing and project development activities of the Group, spanning several continents and over 30 countries. In this capacity he is Chairman of the Board of the Markala Sugar Company in Mali and continues to be a consultant with SGG.

 

Dr. Nedelcovych served in the Administration of President George Bush from 1989 to 1993 as the U.S. Executive Director to the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. In this position, he represented the U.S. Government and U.S. shareholder interests on the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB). He was instrumental in formulating the "private sector initiative" at the AfDB that led to the creation of the $200 million private sector lending window, the African Business Roundtable and the African Export-Import Bank. 

 

Prior to being named Executive Director to the AfDB, Dr. Nedelcovych held the position of Principal at Arthur Young's International Consulting Group, specializing in privatization, trade and export promotion, investment attraction, and joint-venture formation in developing countries. In this position he dealt with all emerging markets including Asia, Latin America and Europe. He is an expert in international finance and marketing in emerging economies, with 30 years experience living and working in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.  At the beginning of his career he also served as Peace Corps Country Director in Gabon, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Administrator for Africa at USAID, and as a Special Projects Officer at the US Trade and Development Agency.

 

He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Yale University, a Master of Arts in International Relations from George Washington University, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Political and Economic Development from Florida State University (in conjunction with Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco). He is fluent in English, French, and Serbian and is proficient in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.

Noel Maurer is an associate professor at the Harvard Business School in the Business, Government and the International Economy (BGIE) unit. Maurer earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1997. Between 1998 and 2004 he worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at ITAM, a university in Mexico City. Maurer also worked at an NGO dedicated to helping small rural communities in Chiapas find new business opportunities for their inhabitants.  He joined the Business School faculty in 2004.

Maurer’s primary research interest is on how governments protect (or fail to protect) property rights and how do private actors defend their property rights against predatory governments or in the face of political instability? Maurer’s first two books, The Power and the Money and The Politics of Property Rights (the second co-authored with Stephen Haber and Armando Razo) examined how Mexican politicians and private actors created mechanisms that enabled investors to protect their property rights by transferring rents to third parties upon whom the government depended for political support. If those rents were interrupted, then the third parties would withdraw their support, and the government would risk collapse. These arrangements allowed Mexico’s economy to grow substantially despite a revolution, a counter-revolution, a counter-counter-revolution, two military coups, three coup attempts, three civil wars, and two presidential assassinations.  Maurer’s third book, Mexico Since 1980 (co-authored with Herb Klein, Kevin Middlebrook and Stephen Haber) asked why Mexico’s authoritarian government collapsed in the 1980s and 1990s.  It also asks how Mexico’s transition to democracy affected the business environment.  What did democracy change and what did it not? 

He is currently researching the history of the U.S. government's attempts to protect American investors when they venture outside the United States.  He is also working on further developing a course on the politics and economics of the energy business.