By Samuel Kojo DARKO
A report from the World Bank has disclosed that roughly Approximately 420 million out of the nearly 600 million Individuals lacking access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa reside in remote, vulnerable areas affected by conflicts.
The absence of accessible and consistent electrical power significantly impedes development objectives and economic progress across Africa, particularly in regions like Western, Central Africa, and the Sahel—including nations such as the Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, and Sierra Leone—where only about 5% of rural areas have access to electricity on average.
Enhancing electricity access for marginalized and underprivileged populations across Africa is essential and intricately connected with meeting various Sustainable Development Goals such as SDG 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7.
Mission300, a collaborative initiative between The World Bank and the African Development Bank, seeks to provide electricity access to 300 million individuals currently without power in Africa by the year 2030.
Mission300 has recognized solar off-grid solutions as the most effective approach to meet their goals, particularly for reaching individuals in remote, vulnerable, and war-torn areas. Nevertheless, obtaining affordable funding to support this initiative remains challenging.
The World Bank Estimates suggest that Africa requires approximately $200 billion per year to attain universal electricity access by 2030, underscoring the necessity of developing new financial strategies to meet this objective.
To address this issue, The World Bank The Climate Technology Fund (CTF), along with the Dutch government (DGIS), has jointly initiated the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP).
ROGEAP is carried out by the ECOWAS Commission and West African Bank for Development (BOAD) as entities for implementing the projects, overseen by a coalition including GOPA AFC , GOPA Tech, and ROENG T.E.C.
ROGEAP aims at 19 nations, which includes all 12 members of ECOWAS along with an additional seven countries: the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso.
Since launching officially at the end of 2023, ROGEAP has delivered training to more than 500 solar firms. The program addresses various subjects including crafting viable business plans, obtaining product certifications, securing financing, ensuring environmental, social, health, and safety standards (ESHS), managing finances effectively, planning budgets, making forecasts, monitoring expenditures, and maintaining accurate records.
ROGEAP additionally provides grant money for both new and established solar businesses looking to extend their reach into remote off-grid areas.
These grants assist solar firms in experimenting with novel business strategies such as PAYGO—enabling underprivileged individuals to obtain solar products without initial expenses, which is often highlighted as a key barrier preventing people from adopting solar solutions. Additionally, they support promotional efforts aimed at increasing awareness about solar energy adoption within the targeted nations.
These grants assist businesses in offsetting their early losses when expanding into difficult rural markets.
The ROGEAP group initiates periodic requests for proposals from qualified solar firms across the 13 nations offering ROGEAP grants.
A preliminary pilot initiative conducted across six nations—namely Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mauritania—led to the allocation of $3.7 million to 30 solar firms. Following this funding, these businesses have been further assisted with procuring solar products, enhancing their project management skills, optimizing grants, adopting best practices, among others.
The objective of these financial and technical aids is to strengthen solar enterprises across Africa, with a particular focus on West Africa, enabling them to bring power to remote and vulnerable areas without access to electricity, thereby supporting the goals of Mission 300.
The writer is a Financial Specialist ROGEAP.
Email: samuel.darko@rogeappfm.con
Provided by Syndigate Media Inc. ( Syndigate.info ).
Post a Comment