Over 4.5 million Nigerians have been connected to electricity under the ambitious Mission 300 initiative.
This was revealed in a press statement made available to Journalists on Tuesday.
The project which is a joint partnership between the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank Group has reached a continental milestone, providing electricity to over 50 million people across 40 African nations.
Initially launched to address Africa’s energy deficit, Mission 300 is now accelerating energy distribution at nearly double its original pace. I
n Nigeria which is home to Africa’s largest population without power, this acceleration is reshaping the nation’s energy future through targeted policy overhauls and a massive influx of private capital.
The project which is being executed through the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) focuses heavily on leveraging public funding to de-risk private markets. By utilizing government support mechanisms alongside international partner financing, Nigeria has turned what was once a highly fragmented energy grid into a commercially viable ecosystem for private enterprise.
As part of its National Energy Compact, the Federal Government has introduced bold reforms aimed at doubling its annual electricity access growth rate from 4% to 9%.
As the Nigerian market models how to successfully scale up private solutions, other participating African nations are reporting significant breakthroughs under the Mission 300 umbrella.
In Tanzania, a rapid influx of funding and policy adjustments has caused electrification to surge five times faster than its historical average, expanding power access to 7.5 million citizens.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia has introduced major state-driven policy reforms focused on lowering the upfront costs of grid connections, successfully allowing 4.6 million people to tie into the national grid.
Across the continent, 30 countries have formalized their own National Energy Compacts. A fresh wave of nations, including Uganda, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Gabon, and the Central African Republic, are currently preparing to launch their frameworks at the upcoming Africa Energy Forum.
To date, the core multilateral lenders, the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank Group have collectively funneled nearly $15 billion into Mission 300-related projects, drawing an additional $4.5 billion in co-financing. Philanthropic leaders like The Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) have also collectively chipped in over $100 million to back these big bets.
Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group, emphasized that while fifty million people connected is a milestone, the bigger story is the pace and the partnership behind it.
He noted that electricity is ultimately about what it enables, including jobs, business, health care, education, and opportunity.
As Africa’s young workforce grows exponentially, the unified framework of Mission 300 is proving to be a highly effective engine for economic transformation, showing that localized, country-led solutions can successfully turn the lights on across the continent.