A World Bank report has revealed that approximately 70% of the nearly 600 million people without electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa live in rural, fragile, conflict-affected communities.
The lack of clean, reliable electricity severely hampers developmental goals and economic growth in Africa, especially in Western, Central Africa, and Sahel countries such as the Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, and Sierra Leone, where rural electrification rates are below 5% on average.
Improving electricity access for marginalized and disadvantaged groups in Africa is crucial and closely linked to achieving several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including SDGs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7.
The Mission300, a joint effort by The World Bank and the African Development aims to connect 300 million people who are unconnected in Africa to electricity by 2030.
The Mission300 has identified solar off-grid solutions as the most convenient method in achieving its objectives, especially when connecting people in the rural, fragile and conflict -affected communities. However, access to concessional financing to advance this course is limited.
The World Bank estimates that Africa will need about $200 billion annually to achieve universal electricity access by 2030, and highlighted the need for innovative financing models in achieve this.
To address this issue, The World Bank, Climate Technology Fund (CTF), and the Dutch government (DGIS) have jointly commissioned the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP).
ROGEAP is implemented by the ECOWAS Commission and Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement (BOAD) as project implementation units, and managed by a consortium including GOPA AFC , GOPA Tech , and ROENG T.E.C.
ROGEAP targets 19 countries, including the 12 ECOWAS member states plus seven other countries namely Central African Republic, Cameroon, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
Since its official start in late 2023, ROGEAP has provided capacity building to over 500 solar companies, covering topics such as developing bankable business plan, product certification, access to finance, environmental social health and safety (ESHS), financial management, budgeting, forecasting, expenditure tracking, and record-keeping.
ROGEAP also offers grant funding to startups, early stage and mature solar companies to expand their operations into hard-to-reach off-grid communities.
These grants help solar companies to test innovative business models like PAYGO (which allows marginalized people to own solar products without incurring upfront costs-which is one of the most cited factors inhibiting people to acquire solar solutions) and promote solar adoption awareness campaigns in project countries.
The grants also help companies mitigate their initial losses in extending operations to challenging rural market.
The ROGEAP team launches regular calls for proposals from eligible solar companies in 13 ROGEAP grant countries.
An initial pilot call in six countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mauritania) resulted in the disbursement of $3.7 million to 30 solar companies. These companies have since received additional support in solar product procurement, project management, and grant utilization, best practices etc.
These financial and technical supports aim to empower solar companies in Africa (especially in West Africa) to extend electricity to the unconnected rural and fragile communities, and contributing to the achievement of mission300.
The writer is a Financial Specialist ROGEAP.
Email: [email protected]
