An initiative to connect 300 million Africans to electricity in the next six years has won new pledges worth more than $8 billion from lenders including the Islamic Development Bank and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank.
This is even as Nigeria has secured a $1.1 billion loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) for the provision of electricity for 5 million people by the end of 2026.
According to Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President, (Information & Strategy), President Bola Tinubu made this known in a speech presented by Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power, at the just concluded two-day Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Tinubu also stated that the AfDB’s $200 million in the Nigeria Electrification Project will provide electricity for 500,000 people by the end of 2025.
“I (Tinubu) acknowledged AfDB’s $1.1 billion, expected to provide electricity for 5 million people by the end of 2026, while its $200 million in the Nigeria Electrification Project will provide electricity for 500,000 people by the end of 2025.
“This is an ambitious goal, but we can achieve it together,” Tinubu said. “As Nigeria’s President, I am committed to making energy access a top priority.”
Meanwhile, the president of Nigeria is also expecting to get the planned $1.2 billion AfDB investment in the Nigeria Desert to Power programme and facility for the Nigeria-Grid Battery Energy Storage System.
“We also look forward to the AfDB’s planned $700 million investment in the Nigeria Desert to Power programme and its planned $500 million facility for the Nigeria-Grid Battery Energy Storage System, which will provide electricity for an additional two million people,” Tinubu said.
“We have equally begun making plans to ensure the effectiveness of the World Bank’s $750 million support for expanding Nigeria’s distributed energy access via mini-grids and standalone solar systems that will provide access to power to 16.2 million people,” he added.
The Mission 300 initiative, launched by the World Bank and the African Development Bank in April, is projected to cost $90 billion. Its implementation faces challenges because the economies of countries in the region are severely constrained, mainly due to sluggish revenue and high debt service costs.
“Our national balance sheets are insufficient… to achieve Mission 300’s objectives,” Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema told an Africa energy summit in Tanzania.
Funding for the project is expected to come from multilateral development banks, development agencies, private businesses and philanthropic organisations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, opens new tab, which is part of the initiative.
Muhammad al Jasser, chairman of the IsDb, said in a statement released during the summit that ended on Tuesday that the Jeddah-headquartered bank was committing $2.65 billion in project financing and another $2 billion to insure power projects in Africa.
Beijing-based AIIB is set to provide $1-1.5 billion in financing.
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“Six hundred million people in Africa without access to electricity is intolerable,” said AIIB President Jin Liqun.
Others funding the project include the French Development Agency (AFD), which committed to providing 1 billion euros ($1.04 billion), and the OPEC Fund for International Development, which made an initial commitment of $1 billion, the AfDB said in a closing statement.
The additional finance builds on commitments of up to $48 billion from the World Bank and the AfDB, officials at the summit said. The two organisations’ contributions could be increased during implementation, they said.
Provision of 300 million people with access to electricity, half of those currently without power on the continent, is a crucial building block for boosting Africa’s development by creating new jobs, said World Bank President Ajay Banga.
Half of the targeted new connections will get electricity from existing national grids, officials said at the summit, while the other half will be from renewable energy sources, including wind and solar mini-grids.
Apart from lighting up homes and businesses, Mission 300 is expected to boost the provision of clean cooking energy to homes, cutting reliance on wood and charcoal which are harmful, said Tanzania’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan.
