The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) – a regional economic organization – and the World Bank will launch a $50-million program to support regional energy access in eastern and southern Africa.
The program will engage specialized local and international firms and private investors to provide technical services, including grid connection, off-grid power generation and clean cooking solutions. COMESA will act as regional supervisor of the program.
“This is an African-owned and led platform to enhance project implementation and accelerate access to clean energy through the facilitation of knowledge exchange, project preparation, provision of advisory services and support for policy development in a timely manner,” said COMESA Secretary General, Chileshe Kapwepwe.
The grant is part of the World Bank’s $5-billion Accelerating Sustainable and Clean Access Transformation (ASCENT) program, designed to provide sustainable energy access to over 100 million people across 20 countries in eastern and southern Africa by 2030.
A Digital Monitoring Reporting and Verification platform will be established to monitor and ensure the progress of the ASCENT program.
