Africa’s plan to bring electricity to 300 million by 2030 takes hold

Abuja. Nigeria is leading the way to make Mission 300 a reality. It’s one of Africa’s boldest electrification drives yet. The Mission aims to connect 300 million people in Africa by 2030 through national reforms, regional coordination, real-time delivery tracking, and billions in blended finance.

Nigeria is the first country to kick off Mission 300, a new continent-wide initiative to halve Africa’s electricity access gap by 2030.

This month, Africa’s most populous nation, launched a dedicated delivery and monitoring unit within its Ministry of Power. It’s a major step to embed the agenda of Mission 300 into its policy framework. The Mission is led by the World Bank Group, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the AU, and other partners.

The unit in Nigeria will track reforms, financing flows, and electricity access benchmarks. Therefore, Nigeria is now leading the way for other African countries to operationalize a national Mission 300 mechanism. It is the first country among the 12 signatories to publicly set up a national team dedicated to the Mission. Other countries are expected to participate.

According to Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), “Mission 300 is about national ownership, reform, and delivering energy access that transforms lives.”

"With political will and implementation capacity, we can bridge the access gap sustainably," she added during the launch in Abuja.

Mission 300 aims to connect over 300 million people, roughly half of the nearly 600 million Africans still living without power. Through the initiative, the World Bank will connect 250 million people, while the AfDB targets another 50 million by the end of the decade.

In January 2025, thirty African heads of state and government endorsed the Dar es Salaam Energy Declaration during the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit.

The declaration outlined national reforms to deliver reliable, affordable electricity across the continent and was submitted to the African Union Summit for adoption in February.

Electricity remains out of reach for roughly 600 million people in Africa. In regions such as the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and central Africa, this gap continues to cripple clinics, darken classrooms, and stall economic opportunity.

Despite progress in renewable energy and mini-grids, the African Development Bank notes that fragmented policies, underinvestment, and weak regulatory frameworks have hindered momentum.

Launched in 2023, Mission 300 aims to overcome these challenges by aligning capital with country-led Energy Compacts, detailed national reform plans endorsed under the Dar es Salaam Declaration.

At the January summit, twelve countries, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia, presented comprehensive National Energy Compacts.

These time-bound, data-driven plans outline targets to expand electricity access, scale up renewables and clean cooking, improve utility performance, and attract private capital. Many of these strategies employ geospatial mapping to identify least-cost, high-impact connection pathways.

These governments have adopted integrated electrification strategies targeting both grid and off-grid expansion, strengthening utilities, and unlocking private capital.

At the summit, partners pledged over US$50 billion toward increasing energy access across Africa.

This includes US$48 billion from the World Bank Group and AfDB through 2030, as well as additional commitments such as €1 billion (close to UD$1.2 billion) from Agence Française de Développement, US$1–1.5 billion from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, US$2.65 billion from the Islamic Development Bank, and US$1 billion from the OPEC Fund.

According to Titus Majiwa Omenda, a Nairobi-based energy systems engineer, Nigeria’s July summit “generated a palpable sense of hope, hope that Africa's 600 million people currently without access to electricity will no longer be a static figure used merely for academia.”

“We have 67 months until 2030,” he added, “and to meet Mission 300, we need to connect over 4 million people every month. That calls for deliberate partnerships between public, private, and philanthropic players.” There are signs of that shift. In Eastern and Southern Africa, the ASCENT program, under Mission 300, is expected to deliver power to 100 million people in 20 countries over five years, combining grid expansion, regional power trade, and distributed renewable energy.

According to Joel Masiyiwa, a researcher at the African Energy Futures Lab, Mission 300 is a turning point in how Africa scales electricity access.

“For the first time, we’re seeing a large-scale effort that doesn't treat renewables as an afterthought,” he said in a telephone interview. “Solar mini-grids, distributed storage, and cross-border clean energy trade are now central pillars of expansion, not side projects.”

He added that leveraging renewables at this scale could help countries avoid the lock-in effects of fossil-heavy infrastructure.

In Ethiopia, the Electrification Program (ELEAP) has already enabled 1.6 million new connections, serving over 8 million people and more than 19,000 public institutions since June 2018.

The Ethiopia–Tanzania–Zambia regional interconnection, under the Regional Energy Transmission, Trade, and Decarbonization Project, is set to open north–south power trade across East and Southern Africa. In West and Central Africa, Nigeria’s DARES program, part of Mission 300, will provide solar home systems and mini-grids to over 17.5 million Nigerians while replacing more than 250,000 diesel generators. (Bird story agency)

A complementary RESPITE initiative, spanning Chad, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Togo, is scaling grid-connected renewable energy to millions more.

In Sierra Leone, a partnership with the World Bank is scaling solar mini grids for health centers in five provinces, with over 250,000 people expected to benefit from new off-grid systems in 2025 alone.

Kenya, meanwhile, is preparing to unveil its Mission 300 roadmap later this year. Ministry of Energy reports show the country will focus on digitizing subsidy delivery and expanding last-mile infrastructure through public-private partnerships, a model it expects to attract at least US$400 million in co-investment.

The initiative is also backed by philanthropies and multilaterals. Zafiri, a new investment platform launched by the World Bank, AfDB, and the Rockefeller Foundation, will provide patient capital to distributed energy providers.

With up to $300 million in anchor investment, Zafiri aims to mobilize $1 billion to help close Africa’s clean energy equity gap.

According to the World Bank, more than 21 million people were connected to electricity between July 2023 and February 2025 through Mission 300-aligned programs. Projects in the pipeline are expected to reach nearly 100 million more.

To help countries prepare and plan, the World Bank’s Electrifying Africa technical facility, funded through ESMAP, provides geospatial mapping, demand modeling, and just-in-time assistance.

Still, analysts caution that progress must be inclusive. A 2025 Germanwatch brief warns that prioritizing commercial returns without social safeguards could entrench energy inequities.