Mission 300: Powering Progress in Africa

Lindy Mtongana: Welcome to IFC Audio Stories, the podcast where we talk about private sector solutions to global development challenges. I’m Lindy Mtongana. In this episode, we’re diving into Mission 300—an ambitious initiative to connect 300 million people in Africa to clean, affordable, and reliable electricity by 2030. Led by the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank Group this effort is a game-changer for communities, economies, and indeed the future of the African continent.

For more, I’m joined by IFC’s Valerie Levkov, Global Industry Director for Energy, Metals & Mining, and Sustainable Infrastructure Advisory, and Sarvesh Suri, IFC Regional Industry Director for Infrastructure & Natural Resources in Africa. Welcome to you both. 

Lindy: Valerie, start us off if you will by explaining what Mission 300 is. 

Valerie: Thank you for having me. Mission 300 is an ambitious initiative by the World Bank Group connecting 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030. We work in partnership with the African Development Bank and other key partners like Rockefeller and Sustainable Energy for All. This initiative aims to address the chronic energy access deficit in Africa, where nearby 600 million people live without electricity. By connecting people, businesses and economies to electricity, Mission 300 aims to transform lives, power hospitals and schools, create job opportunities and foster investment and trade. Mission 300 is a unique and unprecedented effort that ensures close collaboration between the World Bank, MIGA and IFC. It operates across interlocking pillars of public funding, sector reform, technical assistance and private capital mobilization to achieve success, leveraging a wealth of innovation and partnerships. 

Lindy: Sarvesh, It’s an ambitious agenda. What role does the private sector play in scaling up energy solutions to this extent, this quickly. 

Sarvesh: Thanks, Lindy, and thanks for having me. As you said, Mission 300 is truly an ambitious agenda. We need all the participants, all the stakeholders, the governments, the donor community and the development community and the private sector, to really come together to achieve this. Now, amongst these participants, I would argue that the role of the private sector is critically important, and that's for two reasons. We need the private sector's involvement, and not only for the capital, which will be needed significantly, but also for the innovation and the technical expertise private sector can bring to bear in implementing projects in difficult markets like Africa.

So roughly we are saying that from now until 2030 we need close to about $50 billion of private sector capital that needs to be mobilized. So the role of private sector and capital provision for Mission 300 is front end center. But we also, as I touched upon, need private sector’s innovation. You know, we are working with companies like SCATEC Release that have truly taken a solar power plant and put it into a shipping container, which can very quickly be deployed within a span of six - nine months from start to finish, as against, you know, what used to take three to five years to develop a solar project. Therefore, the entire way the Mission 300 is being designed and implemented, private sector's role is really front and center. And thereby, the role the IFC and MIGA within the World Bank Group institutions, is expected to play in mobilizing that funding is also very really at the forefront.

Lindy: It is a significant amount of capital to be raised. Valerie, what are some of the innovative financial solutions being used by the IFC and the World Bank Group to address perceived investment risk and encourage better collaboration with the private sector on Mission 300?  

Valerie: Prominent examples that come to my mind are providing patient equity or local currency financing or de-risking instruments. For patient equity, we need permanent capital vehicles to provide long term patient equity financing to private sector companies operating in mini-grids, solar home systems, clean cooking, and other solutions within the distributed renewable energy (DRE) sector. Such initiatives are essential to address the significant equity financing gap in this market today. By providing loans in local currency, we ensure that businesses are not adversely affected by exchange rate fluctuations, thereby promoting stability and growth in the local economy. We are engaging with financial intermediaries to expand access to local currency debt where it is most needed. For de-risking instruments, the guarantees and risk mitigation tools are crucial in encouraging private sector investment by reducing perceived risk. The World Bank Group's Unified Guarantee Platform provides access to a comprehensive set of instruments which can cover various risks, including political, credit and market risks, thereby creating a more favorable investment climate.

Lindy: So the private sector brings capital and innovation to the table, but also key to the success of mission 300 is the political will, or indeed commitment from governments. Now, at the end of this month, African leaders will gather in Tanzania for the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit where they'll unveil their national energy compacts. These essentially outline reforms they're committed to implementing in order to help achieve energy access targets. Sarvesh, talk us through how these compacts might stimulate private sector investment in support of the goals of Mission 300.  

Sarvesh: Absolutely, I think, as you've said very well, mobilizing private sector in the energy space in Africa is going to really start with the governments creating the right framework, the regulatory framework for private sector to invest in. Not only is the process of improving the regulatory setups is important, but also showing to the private sector and to investors the government's commitment to achieve that is important, and that's where the country compacts come in. So these country compacts, essentially look at them as business plans that each of the country governments is owning and designing, and they'll be disclosing at the end of the month - to private sector and to the public at large about their plans on how they want to achieve SDG  7, that there's 100% access to electricity by 2030 in their respective countries. Now we, from the IFC have worked very closely with our colleagues at the World Bank and African Development Bank in identifying what exactly are the reforms that are needed on a country-by-country basis for private sector to invest both in the on-grid electricity but also the off-grid electricity sectors. And these plans will be unveiled, as you said, at the Heads of State summit in Dar es Salaam.  

And we are quite excited about the summit , because I think we already have close to about 25 heads of state confirmations to attend the summit. We have close to about 60 ministers of electricity or power or finance who have been confirmed. And from IFC side, we've been able also to gather some of our top clients. And we are expecting that with the unveiling of these country compacts, the private sector investors will be able to announce their investments that will really kick start this process.

Lindy: Well its certainly not lost on our audience the extent to which we are on the brink of something quite revolutionary for Africa. Sarvesh are there any other reflections you wish to share with our listeners?  

Sarvesh: I would say two points. The first is that at this point of time, mission critical, is absolutely important for us to deliver on as a World Bank Group our agenda of poverty elevation.

In a comparison, if you see the Western media today, the news talks about how AI is improving productivity gains, increasing job content for people, and helping them achieve a fulfilling life.

On the other hand, if you read the media about Africa, there’s 600 million people, nearly half the population still does not have basic access to electricity, which is absolutely paramount for us to correct, so that people can then get digitally connected and then build on that to achieve the productivity that digitalization can bring into their lives and thereby eventually leading into better quality jobs and improving people's incomes and their lives.

The second point is also that the improvements that have taken place in solar energies and distributed renewable energies and remote metering allow us technologically, to be able to connect 100% of the people at much lower the cost that could have happened 10 years back. So, both the need for us a development institution to connect everybody in Africa, as well as the opportunity which new technologies enable us today make it absolutely paramount for us to deliver this as one of the key World Bank Group goals as president Ajay Banga has announced this, this to be energizing Africa, to be the priority number one, priority number two and priority number three for the World Bank Group.  

Lindy: Thats it for today’s episode of IFC Audio Stories. Thank you to my guests, Sarvesh Suri and Valerie Levkov. For more on this topic search for Mission 300 on the Wrol Bank Group’s website. Thats worldbank.org. And to follow events at the Africa Energy Summit taking place in Tanzania on the 27th and 28th of January visit mission300africa.org. 

I’m Lindy Mtongana, thanks for listening.