Nigeria can drive clean energy future through public-private partnerships — Expert
Speaking in a recent interview, Tonimi Rotimi-Ojo emphasised the need for Nigeria to adopt innovative financial strategies to drive investments in local EV manufacturing, battery production, and critical supply chain infrastructure.
'Public-private partnerships can provide the critical financial and technological support needed to bridge the gap between Nigeria's clean energy ambitions and the real-world challenges of infrastructure, financing, and technological capacity,' he said.
The expert also stressed the importance of using robust economic tools to assess the viability and scalability of EV projects in Nigeria.
'Investment decisions in EV manufacturing are inherently risky, particularly given the volatility of commodity prices like lithium and cobalt. Financial intelligence is essential to model these risks accurately and ensure that projects are economically sustainable,' he added.
Rotimi-Ojo highlighted Nigeria's natural resource base, including lithium deposits in Nasarawa and other critical minerals, as a significant advantage in the global EV race.
He advocated for government-supported initiatives to establish mineral processing hubs, which would not only supply domestic EV manufacturers but also enable Nigeria to participate in global supply chains.
To achieve this vision, Rotimi-Ojo outlined several urgent recommendations. These include establishing a National EV Development Fund to co-finance EV infrastructure and manufacturing, developing regulatory clarity, promoting research and development, implementing regional supply chain clusters, and incentivising clean energy integration through solar-powered charging networks.
He emphasised the need for sustainability in Nigeria's EV development strategy, saying, 'Building an EV supply chain in Nigeria must go beyond economic growth; it must also focus on environmental stewardship and social inclusivity.'
Rotimi-Ojo believes that incorporating Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) principles into financial planning will make projects more attractive to international investors and ensure alignment with emerging global sustainability standards.
He expressed optimism about Nigeria's potential to lead Africa's clean energy future.
'By embracing public-private collaboration, applying advanced financial modelling, and embedding sustainability at every level, Nigeria can leapfrog into the global EV economy.
'It's not just about vehicles; it's about creating a cleaner, more prosperous, and more resilient future for generations to come,' he said.
Copyright © 2022 Nigerian Tribune Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tourism Breaking News
3 hours ago
- Tourism Breaking News
FHS World 2025 marks 20 years of shaping global hospitality investment
Post Views: 49 The Future Hospitality Summit (FHS) celebrates its 20th anniversary in the UAE this year, cementing its position as the region's leading platform for hospitality and tourism investment with TravTalkMe as media partner. Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, they foresee continued growth in secondary cities, mixed-use projects, branded residences, and tech integration, alongside rising ESG priorities. Their consensus: hospitality's future will reward those who blend innovation with authentic guest experiences. Founded by The Bench, FHS has become a global meeting ground for leaders, innovators, and investors to connect, collaborate, and define the industry's future. To mark the milestone, Chairman Jonathan Worsley invited six members of the exclusive FHS Club to share insights on the sector's evolution. Leaders from Radisson Hotel Group, HVS, Accor, Hilton, Taiba Investments, and JLL highlighted the industry's shift from asset-heavy to agile, diversified, and experience-led models, driven by sustainability, technology, and emerging markets.
Zawya
5 hours ago
- Zawya
Agridence Transitions to Founder-Led Governance, Secures Global Investment to Accelerate Multi-Commodity Compliance Platform
Additional funding allows Agridence to better deliver its traceability modules and ESG solutions across agri-commodity sectors globally. SINGAPORE - Media OutReach Newswire - 13 August 2025 - Agridence Pte. Ltd. ("Agridence"), a Singapore-based technology leader in digital agri-commodity supply chains, today announced a funding round led by Cercano Management and supported by returning strategic investors EXEO Innovation Fund and Provident. This will empower Agridence to rapidly scale its multi-commodity compliance platform to help its customers by tackling industry-wide challenges such as supply chain opacity, sustainability risks, and fragmented smallholder networks. CEO Gerald Tan, who led Agridence's development since its inception in 2018, has invested additional capital to solidify his position as founder and the single largest individual shareholder of the company. This transition from a corporate venture-built startup to a founder owned and led enterprise underscores Tan's commitment to delivering value to Agridence's customers. "This funding marks a pivotal new chapter for Agridence. We are immensely grateful for the foundational support from our early corporate shareholders; their backing was instrumental during our startup phase and crucial in building the robust platform we have today. Now, as we mature, embracing a founder-led model is key to unlocking greater agility and neutrality. That's why this shift isn't just about capital; it's fundamentally about ownership alignment and direct accountability," said Gerald Tan, CEO and Founder of Agridence."The modular traceability infrastructure we built for natural rubber is now powering compliance for palm oil, cocoa, and beyond, proving these challenges are universal across agri-commodities, and we are now better positioned than ever to solve them." Why This Matters: Neutrality Meets Regulatory Urgency The shift to an independent, founder-led model provides better alignment and allows Agridence to address a critical industry need for a truly neutral technology platform that serves all stakeholders without corporate bias. " Southeast Asia is a key source and integral region in the global agri-commodities supply chain. A platform like Agridence that applies technology while working with local stakeholders for a more transparent, sustainable, and responsible sourcing is imperative for the industry. With this additional capital and new model, we see immense potential in Agridence, especially so being independently led by a local founder who has an operating track record within the rubber sector and has a team with deep sector know-how and local knowledge," said Yu Minjie, Managing Director at Cercano Management. From Niche to Multi-Commodity Expansion Agridence has evolved from its roots in digitizing physical natural rubber trades to delivering a comprehensive, multi-commodity platform for global MNCs and industry associations. Recent milestones include: Natural Rubber: The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR), whose members represent about 50% of the global market, uses Agridence's reporting platform for annual sustainability data submissions. Palm Oil: Agridence powers the RSPO Certification, Trade and Traceability System (prisma), supporting RSPO Certified Palm Oil trades and Sustainable Palm Oil Credits. This initiative went live in February 2025, with nearly 20,000 users expected on the system. Coconut: As the technology partner for the Sustainable Coconut Partnership's SCP Links platform, Agridence is simplifying sustainability reporting, digitizing audits, and increasing transparency. Cocoa: The company is driving smallholder inclusion through mapping programs across Africa. Interest is also growing in coffee, cashew, sugarcane, and other sectors. The new funding will accelerate Agridence's go-to-market strategy, supporting entry into new commodity verticals and geographic markets through strategic partnerships and acquisitions. "Our biggest differentiator is our team's deep and diverse agri-commodity background," Gerald Tan added."Trust is everything in this business. By leveraging our relationships, domain expertise, and technology innovations, we deliver proven regulatory and risk frameworks that solve our customers' real pain points. We know the challenges because we've lived them and our partners trust us to solve them." "Agridence has proven its capability to scale across multiple commodities and has earned the trust of global corporates, MNCs and industry associations. With momentum building in new commodities and geographies, the company is poised for exciting growth. We are proud to back the Agridence team as they enter this next chapter and deliver measurable impact across global supply chains," said Lim Swee Yong, CEO of EXEO Innovation Fund Management. Hashtag: #investment #impact #globalagrisupplychains #multicommoditysolution #traceability #governance The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. About Agridence Agridence is a Singapore headquartered agri-tech platform that digitises global agri-commodity supply chains to deliver end-to-end traceability, ESG compliance, and sustainability reporting. Our cloud-native, API-ready software combines AI analytics, geospatial mapping and mobile application data capture to monitor natural rubber, palm oil, cocoa, coconut and other crops end-to-end. Multinational companies, traders, processors and smallholders rely on Agridence to be compliant with the European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), RSPO, GPSNR and other certification and assurance models. By embedding technology, trust and transparency at scale, we help the agri-commodity sector reduce deforestation risk and build resilient, low-carbon, socially responsible supply chains. The Agridence ecosystem unlocks: Real time supply chain transparency and chain-of-custody tracking Automated environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk analysis Smallholder onboarding and digital payment workflows API integrations with ERP, trading and certification systems By turning complex compliance into competitive advantage, Agridence helps enterprises de-risk sourcing, protect forests, and build a more resilient, sustainable agriculture ecosystem. Discover our agri-commodity compliance platform at email info@ or follow us on LinkedIn at About Cercano Management Cercano Management is a multi-family office that provides investment advisory and other services to select business owners and their families, foundations, charitable organizations, and related entities. Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Cercano manages over US$10BN in global assets as of December 2024 across venture capital, private equity, private credit and public equity strategies. Cercano's Asia headquarters in Singapore focuses on early-stage and private investments and has invested in 30 companies in the region since its inception in July 2019. Agridence
Crypto Insight
7 hours ago
- Crypto Insight
Blockchain set to eliminate complexity in Web3 with 2025 roadmap
Algorand's roadmap for 2025 translates its core principles into concrete initiatives, including a community-led grant program and a user-friendly cryptocurrency wallet. Blockchain technology was built on a set of ideals, such as decentralization, community governance and sustainability. However, the industry is not strange to projects that discard these foundational ideals for short-term gains. Algorand, a layer-1 blockchain, remains strictly committed to these values, and its 2025 roadmap reaffirms this approach. Community takes the wheel In line with this commitment, the project is developing Project King Safety. With a position paper slated for release in Q4 2025, this new initiative will revamp fee structures and network incentives to ensure long-term protocol viability. Algorand is bringing back its grant program with a revised governance structure as well. The program will be wholly governed by a community-elected xGov Council that will review proposals and provide recommendations. The xGov system will launch in Q3 this year. A proposal to enhance general governance by making it fully onchain and open-source is expected by the end of the year. The Algorand roadmap is now out. Let's take a look at what this means for the future of Algorand 🧵 — Algorand Foundation (@AlgoFoundation) July 31, 2025 Algorand Foundation has also been carrying out efforts to reduce its influence in governance, such as the staking rewards program launched earlier this year. The program decreased the foundation's percentage of total stake from 63% to 21%. To further decentralization, Algorand debuted a peer-to-peer gossip network that replaced the centralized relay node structure. As more nodes join in, the blockchain is expected to become a fully P2P network. Eliminating barriers to adoption Developer experience is a central focus in Algorand's 2025 roadmap. AlgoKit 4.0, slated for early 2026, introduces composable smart contract libraries and support for Rust, Swift and Kotlin. A new key-value storage system called Schema will simplify state management. Algorand also plans to integrate with large language models, enabling developers to use AI tools as coding assistants. For enterprises, Algorand is rolling out Intermezzo in Q3 2025 — a custodial middleware layer built on HashiCorp Vault and REST APIs. It abstracts key management and blockchain integration, allowing businesses to launch onchain services like loyalty programs with minimal complexity. Intermezzo is already powering a new initiative by WorldChess. On the user side, the upcoming Rocca Wallet offers a reimagined interface for not-so-tech-savvy users. Rocca is a white-label wallet solution that enables DApps to create a Web2-like experience for their users. Due in preview by Q4 2025 and open-source by 2026, the wallet supports passkey logins, fee abstraction and decentralized identity. Powering real-world use cases Algorand is targeting four real-world use cases in 2025: tokenized financial products, agentic commerce, self-sovereign identity and data integrity. The protocol is developing smart contract-based representations for assets like debt and equity using the ACTUS framework, with a Debt Algorand Standard Assets (ASA) MVP to be released in Q4 2025. For agentic commerce — where AI agents transact autonomously — Algorand is offering a complete developer toolkit, including X402 and A2A payment support. The Rocca Wallet will also unlock use cases related to verifiable credentials, such as WorldChess issuing a Universal Chess Passport to help players join online tournaments seamlessly. Algorand's 2025 roadmap includes upgrades to privacy, scalability and quantum resistance as well. To improve privacy, the network is improving its existing zero-knowledge infrastructure, AlgoPlonk, while exploring multiparty computation and fully homomorphic encryption. You can now build apps on Algorand using zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), thanks to AlgoPlonk. So if you're building the next Tea app, you can design it to keep user data — Algorand Foundation (@AlgoFoundation) July 26, 2025 Scalability enhancements, such as parallel execution and block pipelining, are also under development. On the quantum front, Algorand is already using Falcon-based state proofs and plans to extend quantum-secure signatures to user accounts. Committed to the core values of Web3 Algorand's plans for 2025 reinforce the project's longstanding commitment to security, decentralization and community-led development. These values have shaped a network with a consistent track record of uptime and scalability. With improvements in governance, developer experience, enterprise integration and advanced cryptography, Algorand is not just scaling its technology — it's laying the groundwork for a blockchain that supports emerging applications, reduces entry barriers and meets the demands of everyday users alike. Source:
