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The World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have joined forces in an initiative to combat Africa’s energy poverty crisis by increasing access to electricity across the continent. The landmark partnership aims to empower at least 300 million people with reliable and affordable power supply by 2030, improving living standards and boosting economic growth in Africa.
The World Bank’s decision to partner with the AfDB is considered a significant step forward in its ongoing transformation to become more impact-driven and effective in tackling Africa’s energy challenges. The initiative, which draws on the World Bank’s diversified range of regional energy programs, has been reconfigured to support the common objective of ensuring that everyone in Africa has access to reliable and affordable electricity by 2030.
In order to achieve the target of connecting an additional 250 million people to electricity in Africa, the World Bank has highlighted that public sector investment will play a critical role. The institution stated that IDA, its concessional funding arm for low-income countries, will be pivotal in providing $30 billion of funding to support this initiative.
Moreover, the World Bank underlined that African governments must adopt policies that will draw in private investment, while simultaneously reforming their utilities to make them financially stable, efficient, and customer-focused. The reforms must also ensure that electricity tariffs are structured in such a way that protects low-income consumers.
In the agreed partnership between the World Bank and the African Development Bank, the World Bank has pledged to provide electricity to an additional 250 million people, primarily through the deployment of distributed renewable energy systems or by connecting them to existing electricity distribution grids.
The AfDB, meanwhile, is expected to support an additional 50 million people in gaining access to electricity, bringing the total number of individuals expected to be connected to electricity through this partnership to 300 million.
The World Bank also shed light on the dire situation of energy poverty in Africa, with over 600 million Africans currently lacking access to electricity. This deficiency in power supply, it stated, presents a significant obstacle to the provision of vital services such as healthcare, education, digital inclusivity, and job creation, ultimately hindering economic development and social progress across the continent.
In his remarks at the joint press conference, Ajay Banga, the President of the World Bank, underscored the pivotal role of reliable electricity in supporting sustainable development and growth globally.
Banga described electricity as a critical ingredient for economic growth and essential for job creation at scale.
He stated further: “Our aspiration will only be realized with partnership and ambition. We will need policy action from governments, financing from multilateral development banks, and private sector investment to see this through.”
Commenting on the partnership, Akinwumi Adesina, the AfDB president highlighted the interconnected nature of the issues that the partnership between the African Development Bank and the World Bank aims to address, emphasising the importance of a multifaceted approach to the continent’s development:
Adesina stated: “Three things Ajay and I agreed to do was first, solve Africa’s energy problem.
“Second is, let’s make sure Africa can feed itself, and of course, to do that, you also need energy to power industries for value addition and the third one is to make sure that we create jobs. And you can’t create jobs if you don’t have energy rolling in an economy”.
