World Bank, AfDB in pact to connect 300m with electricity

 World Bank Group and the AfDB, together with partners, seeks to combine increased infrastructure investments with comprehensive policy reforms across the entire electricity supply chain. [Courtesy]

Access to electricity is essential for development.

Yet nearly 600 million Africans (about half of the continent’s population) lack this essential resource, accounting for 83 per cent of the global electricity access deficit.

To close this gap and help communities all over Africa build better lives, the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank Group, together with partners, have embarked on a mission to expand electricity access to 300 million people in Africa by 2030.

This ambitious initiative, dubbed Mission 300, will combine increased infrastructure investments with comprehensive policy reforms across the entire electricity supply chain.

It is thanks to a partnership between The Rockefeller Foundation and ODI Global Washington.

The achievement of the initiative’s ambition will be done through the use of 15 fellows in the first cohort of the mission.

The 15 will relocate to 17 countries that have poor electricity access and stay there to work towards the success of the mission.

The countries are Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Burundi, Mozambique, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Republic of Congo, Namibia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.

The programme will select 15 early-career professionals who will support the implementation of National Energy Compacts by providing technical assistance (e.g., policy papers, financial modelling), facilitating partnerships, and improving stakeholder coordination.

Accessing electricity

According to Mission 300 Accelerator Chief Executive Andrew Herscowitz, the two banks came up with this initiative during the World Bank spring meetings in 2024.

“Just over a year ago, the World Bank committed to 250 million Africans getting access to electricity by 2030. And the African Development Bank committed to 50 million,” said Herscowitz during an interview last week at The Rockefeller Foundation offices in Nairobi.

He said the fellows are just one of the many tools that they’re using to try to help governments achieve their Mission 300 commitments.

“We see that often energy projects don’t move forward because of a lack of human resources within governments themselves. Africa is a continent of more than 50 countries, some that are very small and have very small governments,” said Herscowitz.

“So, we want to make sure that governments are in a position to be able to deliver on the commitments they made in their national energy compacts. And that means having the staff to do that.”

A majority of the fellows are professionals in energy and its infrastructure.

In addition to the fellows, he said they are also working with governments to hire staff for what they’re calling compact delivery and monitoring units.

Identified the needs

Herscowitz said they’ve also established an “expert roster” for Mission 300 so that as the fellows and the other staff of the compact delivery and monitoring units get up and running, they identify needs for specialised expertise and support and can deploy those experts as well on a short-term basis.

In January this year, at the African Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 27 Heads of State signed on to an all-Africa declaration, committing to the goal of 300 million Africans having access to electricity.

“At that summit, 12 governments entered into very specific national energy compacts, which laid out what their pathway was going to be to achieving their goals. We expect that during the UN General Assembly meetings, which happened in September, another 17 governments will enter into national energy compacts for this cohort one,” said Herscowitz.

He said they expect that by the end of this calendar year, about 30 countries will have very specific compacts with plans and specific reforms they need to achieve laid out to keep them on the path so that they can achieve this goal.

Unfortunately, Kenya is not in this first cohort, which Herscowitz said perhaps because there is less urgency for the country than for those where only 20 per cent of the population has access to electricity

“Kenya’s in this next cohort that’s coming up right now. And so, Kenya, as you know, has come a very, very long way and is in a much better place than many of the other countries on the continent,” said Herscowitz.