Kenya is leading the East African region in the implementation of green technologies, a World Bank official said on Tuesday.

World Bank Group Director of Innovation Gerardo Corrochano told Xinhua that the region could borrow from the lessons from the country's emerging industry.

"Kenya is quickly adopting green technologies due to a huge appetite and spirit from entrepreneurs eager to tap into the emerging opportunities," Corrochano said during a climate conference to launch the Climate Innovation Center (CIC) estimated to cost $12 million.

He added that the World Bank group has partnered with the Danish and British governments to set up the first center in the region and will be hosted at Strathmore University.

The director said that initial estimates indicate that over 5, 000 green jobs will be created by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that will be incubated in the facility.

The World Bank official said that commercial banks are yet to embrace extending loans to innovators of green technologies. "Green finance is an emerging ecosystem and so the banks are yet to fully understand the risks in the businesses," he said.

He noted that the World Bank is supporting low carbon growth initiatives in Kenya and will be used a model for the rest of the region.

World Bank Climate Technology Program Coordinator Jonathan Coony said that there is a lot of capital in the developed world looking for investment opportunities. "In the last few years, economic growth has been occurring in low income nations but perception of high risk has limited cash inflows," Coony said.

He noted that under the CIC program, eligible SME's will receive grants of up to $50,000 each in order to take their green innovations to the market.

"We will provide funds in the early stages of innovations in order to ensure that investors will be more comfortable to buy equity later on," he said. World Bank said that any seed capital injected in a promising company will be invested with expectation of return for all shareholders.

He noted that SMEs could be the source of innovations needed in order adapt and mitigate the negative effects of climate change.

"Since they are yet to invest in the traditional machines, the can adapt green technologies more easily compared to other firms," he said.

According to Coony, the World Bank hopes to remove the barriers that SMEs face including access to finance and information. He said that the SMEs will provide the vital bottom up innovation that required in order to impact vulnerable communities.

Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI) Director Charles Moturi said that Kenya is embracing a green economy in order to ensure environmental sustainable development.

He said that KIRDI has invested over 120,000 dollars in order to beef up the laboratory responsible for energy testing and analysis.

"Since 2000, the government began the implementation of the cleaner production concept in order to ensure development goes hand in hand with environmental conservation efforts," Moturi said.

He noted that Kenya has initiated a lot of projects in renewable energy, energy efficiency in order to reduce of carbon emissions.

East Africa Climate Innovation Network Coordinator Dr Ben Muok said that they are mapping out clean climate technologies in order to identify which ones will be up scaled.

He said that there is a thin line between climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.

"Due to their overlapping nature, some of the projects undertaken such as the provision of portable energy efficient cooking stoves cover both sectors," the coordinator added. Muok said that the long term goal is that CIC will be rolled out all over Africa.

The Climate Innovation Center (CIC) which will be launched on Wednesday in Nairobi will offer financing and other services to businesses that can profitably address local climate challenges and create sustainable jobs.

The CIC will bring local entrepreneurs and startups into the global clean technology revolution.

Experts say accelerating innovation in emerging technologies is essential to help reduce the current and long-term impacts of climate change.

However, developing countries, which are most immediately threatened by these impacts, lag in their capacity to transfer, develop and deploy innovative climate technologies.

CIC has five acceleration services - financing and investment, business advisory, access to facilities, access to information, and enabling ecosystems - will boost economic activity in high- growth sectors such as renewable energy, agriculture, clean water, and energy efficiency.

The Kenya CIC part of infoDev's Climate Technology Program (CTP) , which is establishing CICs in six other developing countries and a set of global services to support and link them.

The Kenyan organizations will now have the opportunity to build the first CIC in the globe, which will lead in the fight against adverse effects of climate change in the world.

The program will help firms in Kenya come up with green energy technologies. This is expected to create thousands of new jobs and boost response to climate change.