By Dickson Pat
World Bank has revealed that plans to electrify and connect 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria by 2030 lies soly on private sector investment.
The 2030 projection tagged “Mission 300” initiative is a collaborative effort with the African Development Bank ,AfDB, to address energy accessibility gap, where nearly 600 million people of the global unelectrified population lack electricity.
The bank in its report tagged “Mission 300 is Powering Africa” said 83.3% of the targeted 300 million people resulting to 250 million people would be connected through the bank, while a fraction of 16.7% accounting for 50 million people would be provided electricity by AfDB.
The report said the efforts which includes large scale projects implementation, resulting to Nigeria Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up would accelerate the 2030 goal.
It said, “The private sector is central to filling funding gaps. Estimates vary, but electrifying Africa will require a lot more financing than what development banks alone can supply.
“Making massive private investment crucial to meet Mission 300 objectives.
“Businesses must step in and scale up investments in transmission, distribution, and cross-border energy trade”.
In bridging the gap, the lender said the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency are working to create incentives and guarantees that encourage private sector participation in energy projects.
It further cited organisations such as The Rockefeller Foundation, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, and the United Nations’ Sustainable Energy for All initiative as key drivers, mobilizing additional public and private financing to complement resources provided by the World Bank and AfDB.
