This evaluation assesses the World Bank Group’s support for scaling up household electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa. It informs the implementation of Mission 300 – a World Bank Group and African Development Bank initiative to connect 300 million people to electricity in the region by 2030.
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Access to electricity is fundamental to economic transformation, poverty reduction, human development, and job creation. Yet despite significant progress, Sub-Saharan Africa is home to about 85 percent of the world's population without electricity. The region faces systematic constraints, including inadequate infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty, weak utilities, and limited institutional capacity. An estimated $15 billion annual financing gap underscores the need to mobilize private capital alongside public resources.
Introduction
Over the evaluation period, the World Bank Group committed approximately $41.9 billion to electricity access in the region, supporting policy reform as well as grid and off-grid infrastructure. In 2024, the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank launched Mission 300, which aims to bring electricity to 300 million people in the region by 2030. This evaluation draws on the Bank Group's experience to inform Mission 300 and the wider scale-up of electricity access. See more in chapter 1
Relevance of the World Bank Group’s Support for Electricity Access
The World Bank Group's support for electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa was well aligned with regional needs and the Mission 300 pillars. The Bank Group concentrated its portfolio in the region, prioritizing countries with the largest access deficits. Programmatic engagement marked an important shift, with Multiphase Programmatic Approaches growing from 4 percent of investments in fiscal year 2019 to 30 percent by fiscal year 2025. The Bank Group tailored support by country, directing off-grid solutions to the most rural and underserved contexts. See more in chapter 2
Effectiveness of the World Bank Group’s Support to Electricity Access for Households
The World Bank enabled new direct electricity access for 70.9 million people, exceeding targets, including 25 million in 14 countries that had fragility, conflict, and violence status during the evaluation period. Stronger-performing country programs shared three conditions: strong political ownership, capable implementing agencies, and complementary affordability measures.
On reliability, gains for end users were inconsistent, but stronger where the Bank Group coordinated investments across the electricity value chain with sustained multioperation engagement.
On affordability, while the Bank Group made progress in supply expansion and cost reduction, financially weak utilities absorbed the resulting savings to offset operational losses, limiting gains in affordability for customers. Connection subsidies helped low-income households but remained limited in scale relative to need. See more in chapter 3
The World Bank Group’s Support for Utility Performance and Private Sector Participation
The World Bank Group supported improved utility performance in 36 countries and delivered most planned outputs, but these often did not translate into better financial performance. Political resistance to tariff reforms and private sector participation, weak regulatory oversight, and unpaid electricity bills from public institutions prevented cost recovery. Utility reforms supported by the Word Bank Group succeeded mostly under multiyear engagements.
The World Bank Group reported mobilizing about $14.4 billion in private capital, mostly in electricity generation. This was significant but far short of what universal access by 2035 requires, and the investor base remains narrow. Bank Group guarantees were effective: nearly 90 percent of World Bank projects that mobilized private capital relied on them. Joint operations produced the strongest mobilization results. See more in chapter 4
The World Bank Group’s Internal Collaboration and External Partnerships
Bank Group collaboration increased over the evaluation period and helped mobilize private finance, but internal World Bank Group institutional constraints limited its scale and effectiveness.
The Bank Group was the leading development partner for electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for about 36 percent of total energy access aid in 2014-24. In addition, 23 operations received cofinancing of $2.77 billion from 14 partners, raising the financing for those operations by 59 percent. Mission 300 formalized and strengthened collaboration among the Bank Group, the African Development Bank, and other partners. See more in chapter 5
The evaluation offers 3 recommendations for the World Bank to accelerate reliable, affordable energy access throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.