As a largely underdeveloped continent, Africa stands to gain much from the industrialization of other nations. By undertaking projects with an emphasis on “green” benefits, such as carbon accrual or elimination, companies in Africa like Agritech are in a perfect position to sell credits to companies that have exceeded their emissions cap. It is an especially untapped market, in fact of the 3600 CDM projects in 72 countries around the world, China dominates whereas Africa accounts for only 2%.The time is perfect to use the CDM to bring business and money into African nations, as Agritech is now doing with Benin, Togo, Ivory Coast, and of course Burkina Faso.
According to the World Bank, Africa has the potential for more than 3,200 clean energy projects alone. This could produce 170GW of power generation and reduce 740 million tons of greenhouse gases. More reductions can be gained in agriculture and forestry as well.
Why the lag? Funding is typically an issue. It can cost 80,000 – 120,000 euros to register a CDM project and even a biomass-to-energy project like Agritech is conducting will necessitate a minimum investment of of 10 million euros and will probably rise. However when one considers that a typical CDM project generates 30-50 thousand credits a year for twenty one years at a market price of around 10 euros per credit it is well worth the investment.
The demand for carbon credits is vast and so is the potential for projects in Africa. Agritech stands at the forefront of this in West Africa.

CDM CERs distribution by country