Can Africa’s biggest electrification drive keep its promise?

In 2024, an ambitious plan was launched to deliver reliable power to 300 million more sub-Saharan Africans by 2030.

This June, the two main institutions behind the initiative stated that 50 million people have  been connected across 40 African countries, leaving 250 million to go in a little over three years.

The World Bank Group and the African Development Bank (AfDB) reported that electricity access is now moving at “nearly double the pace recorded at the initiative’s launch”, in part due to rapid progress in Tanzania (7.5 million people connected) and Ethiopia (4.6 million) and Nigeria (4.5 million).

The announcement sounds like real progress for some of the roughly 560 million people lacking access to electricity south of the Sahara. However, it also raises questions that the headline figure has yet to answer. The World Bank developed a progress portal to help the public monitor the initiative’s access. But it does not publish village- or town-level raw connection data that would allow individual claims to be checked by a local journalist or researcher.

And until Dialogue Earth contacted the AfDB, neither did it spell out what counts as a connection.

By email, the AfDB stated that the 50 million figure counts new household connections established since July 2023. Connections are defined as a mixture of grid extensions, renewable-energy mini-grids, and standalone solar home systems. Not included are solar lanterns, informal or temporary connections, and meter replacements are excluded, the AfDB added.

Interrogating the 50 million milestone

AfDB said both banks estimated the progress figure by multiplying verified household connections by each country’s official average household size. 

AfDB’s methodology does not resolve how much of the 50 million reflects new infrastructure built because of Mission 300, versus pre-existing national projects that were already underway.

In its email response, AfDB said the progress reporting is verified by itself and the World Bank, and a verification agency may “confirm the status of connections through phone and field verification and spot checks”. The banks’ own “independent evaluation functions” provide a further layer of oversight, it added.

Fikayo Akeredolu, a senior researcher at the University of Bristol, says there is insufficient public data to fully verify the 50 million milestone. Arguing that the World Bank figures are not transparent enough, she called on it to publish a per-country ledger alongside independent audits.

Similarly, Chigozie Nweke-Eze, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Oxford, questioned whether the World Bank is counting connectivity by infrastructure or people actually using that infrastructure. Having a connection is different from being able to afford to use it, he explained, and there is a need to question which situation the 50 million figure reflects.

The evolving wheel of energy finance

In order to bridge the gap between promises and actual connections, Mission 300 has tried to restructure how power is financed in sub-Saharan Africa.

While Africa had tended to depend on subsidised state loans, Mission 300 is attempting the blended finance model. This means using public and philanthropic funds to lower the risk of a project so that private investors feel safe enough to pitch in their own money.

A notable example is the financing vehicle Zafiri, which was supported by an initial USD 176 million investment from banks and philanthropic partners like the Rockefeller Foundation. Zafiri is designed to give long-term equity to African solar companies so banks feel safe to lend them more money. It expects to reach a USD 300 million final close within 12 months.

Another similar platform is DRE Africa, which also aims to make banks and investors more comfortable lending to the sector. It was developed by Sustainable Energy for All along with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, Africa50 and the International Solar Alliance.

Meanwhile, as the multilateral institutions continue to dominate the top policy dialogues and regulatory conversations through “national energy compacts”, the reality on the ground tells a parallel story. And that is where China enters the picture.

China’s role in Mission 300

Much has been made of China’s overseas infrastructure finance shifting towards smaller and greener projects and a more commercial orientation. Even if the smaller and greener part has not been borne out, the shift overlaps with Mission 300’s growing emphasis on distributed renewable power.

Akeredolu said given that Chinese state institutions are not among Mission 300’s named core financing partners, China’s role is probably on the supply side.

Her stance is similar to Nweke-Eze’s, who mentioned indirect Chinese involvement through companies winning contracts to manufacture solar equipment.

Akeredolu further credits cheap Chinese hardware for the collapse in prices of solar modules and batteries, calling it “arguably a larger driver of the off-grid connection surge than any financing innovation”.

Rooftop solar panels in Nairobi, Kenya (Image: Brian Inganga / Associated Press / Alamy)

A reality check

With roughly three and a half years remaining until the 2030 deadline, Akeredolu explained that Mission 300 has to move at a pace of 83 million a year, “against roughly 25 million a year achieved so far”.

That is more than double the current rate, sustained every year till 2030. The challenge is greater still, she said, given the 50 million milestone mostly came from mature grid programmes, conceived long before Mission 300.

Akeredolu argues that if a significant share of the reported connections came from projects already underway before Mission 300, the initiative’s additional impact may be smaller than the headline figure suggests.

The remaining part of Mission 300 also runs some implementation risks. 

According to Akeredolu, power utilities are already losing money because electricity prices are too low, and adding new customers will only make their debt worse. For example, during Zambia’s 2024 power crisis, the national power utility ZESCO estimated that load-shedding cost it about USD 35 million monthly.

Other risks she cited are governance failure, corruption and conflict. Madagascar’s utility executives were sentenced for embezzling money meant to stabilise the country’s fragile grid. Fighting in Goma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, drove a sharp drop in electricity purchases in the city in 2025.

AfDB, for its part, frames the central risk differently: “Success rests on sustaining three things: reform momentum, delivery capacity, and investment flows.”

The bank said governments must keep implementing their national energy compacts, especially reforms that help electricity providers operate more efficiently and collect enough revenue to cover their costs, since financially healthy utilities bolster reliable service. Development partners must sustain concessional finance and expand risk-sharing tools for private investment, it added.

‘Public finance alone will not fund Mission 300’

In its email, the AfDB said Mission 300 was never designed to be powered by public funds alone. The plan is to use government aid money to convince private companies to pay for half of the project. And this is being done through “energy sector reforms, simplified licensing, bankable contracts” among other things.

“As of July 2026, over USD 50 billion in development finance has been pledged”, it said.

Of this, USD 18 billion is from the AfDB, USD 10.4 billion from the World Bank, and a further USD 10.4 billion from other partners, it stated, naming the Islamic Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the European Investment Bank, the French Development Agency, the OPEC Fund for International Development, and the West African Development Bank.

Those three figures add up to USD 38.8 billion, leaving more than USD 11 billion of the headline total not itemised.