Nigeria, others to receive $90bn World Bank electricity fund

Global financial institutions, The World Bank, and the African Development Bank have announced that they have put together $90 billion to fund electricity in Nigeria and other African countries.
According to the World Bank, the project will benefit over 17.5 million Nigerians, or 20 percent of the country’s currently unserved population, while replacing over 250,000 polluting and expensive diesel generators.
The aim is to split the $90 billion needed in funding equally between public funds, concessional and philanthropic finance, and commercial commitments.
The fund is part of the plan from the global financial institution to provide electricity to 300 million African population.
Leading climate organizations including the Rockefeller Foundation, Global Alliance for People and Planet, and Sustainable Energy For All Friday announced the launch of a new technical assistance facility.
This initiative, part of the Mission 300 programme, aims to assess and support projects, helping them secure funding if they meet the program’s criteria.
Nigeria, an integral part of Mission 300, will also be a major beneficiary of the project through the Nigeria Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project.
Accordingly, the Rockefeller Foundation, in partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Ikea Foundation, founded the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) in 2021.
Together, they are providing an initial $10 million through the World Bank to support 15 clean energy projects across 11 African countries, including Burkina Faso and Mozambique.
This initiative aims to advance clean-energy solutions, with focus on technologies like mini-grids, according to a joint statement from the organizations.
Ashvin Dayal, who heads the Rockefeller Foundation’s power and climate programme, in an interview, told Bloomberg TV, ”We’ve seen, frankly, stagnation in getting electricity to more Africans over the last 15 years. This is for us the defining climate and development challenge for the continent over the next 20 years.”
Also speaking, Woochong Um, GEAPP’s chief executive officer, said the fund aims to create a massive fund-raising and advocacy effort to elevate action and mobilize the resources required to help raise some of the funds.
He said, “We need to make sure that we create bankable projects that deliver impact and commercially sound returns.
“We will launch a massive fund-raising and advocacy effort to elevate action and mobilize the resources required.”