Advancing Africa's Energy Future at the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit

WATCH REPLAY WITH CAPTIONS

[Zain Asher]
Hello, everyone. My name is Zain Asher. I m an anchor at CNN International. It is such an honor to be here because I m a big believer in the goals of Mission 300, especially when it comes to lifting millions of my fellow Africans out of poverty. I do want to start by thanking the government of Tanzania for putting on this Summit, the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the African Development Bank. Mission 300 s goals are crucial in terms of addressing a large portion of the energy gap that exists on the continent and investing in the right forms of energy infrastructure to transform the lives of millions of people. I think it s really important to start by underscoring the scale of the challenge before us because we re talking about 600 million Africans who do not have access to power right now. Think about that number, 600 million. What does that mean? When you re talking about those kinds of numbers in terms of people who don t have access to power, that stifles economic growth, that limits access to educational opportunities, it compromises health care, the list goes on. When we re talking about addressing these needs, this is not just a moral imperative. It is crucial in terms of unlocking Africa s vast potential. I do want to start by talking to Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank, about this. Mission 300 s goals. Obviously, it was established last year. It s still in its early stages, it s still in terms of planning, partnership, initial project implementations. Just walk us through what has been specifically achieved since it started last year.

[Ajay Banga]
Yeah, so thanks. Zain, let me I would like to add my thanks to the government of Tanzania, not only for hosting us, but also in the manner in which they ve been executing access to electricity increase in their own country over the past few years. They ve made enormous progress, and that s a lighthouse and a beacon for others to follow as well, although they re ambitious to do even more in the coming period. Congratulations.

[Applause]

[Ajay Banga]
The objective of this conference is to bring together the work of the past few months, where 12 countries have created an energy compact. What does that mean? That means everything ranging from trying to understand, first of all, what s required to get access to electricity. 300 million out of 600 million people is what we want to reach. That s not a small number. It s a hard goal. It s an achievable goal. It s going to take much work. In the past, the biggest challenge has been the absence of all hands coming together to play. One part of that hand is the regulatory policy that is required to make it clear and transparent, both to development banks as well as private sector players, that putting your money to work in this sector will lead to predictable outcomes. The moment you create unpredictability in that regulatory policy framework, you lead people with the decision that says, “I ll take my money and go play elsewhere.” That has to change. That is the fundamental basis of the new compact. So, predictability on tariffs, predictability on land acquisition, predictability on all the things that are required for this investment to be stable. That s the compact. The second part of the compact is to do with how do we get to understand what is required, not just for generation, but for connections to happen. For example, we were using geospatial mapping to figure out every household in a country, and then figure out whether it ll be easier to connect it to the national grid, the way the minister was describing how they re connecting people to the national grid. Or is it in some cases cheaper, quicker, faster to connect them to distributed energy, solar and other renewables. That s a mix that s required. That s the second big work, like the infrastructure of getting this done. The third part of this then says, so now where do we get the money from? Because the financing you need is both on behalf of the development banks, and governments, and the private sector. We ve actually brought the IMF in as well with their RST to enable governments to be able to create the fiscal headroom that they will need to create to make utilities profitable, utilities capable of meeting their demands. There s a series of partners in this idea of regulatory policy clarity, infrastructure and connectivity, and then the financing required. Those three kinds of verticals are where all the work has gone over this last period. Just to add into it, the last piece is the regional electrical markets that we are trying to create. Tanzania spoke to there being part of four already, trying to get to a fifth. This is something we need across the continent, and that s the work that s going on.

[Zain Asher]
Thank you, Ajay, for laying that out. Raj

[Rajiv Sha], let me bring you in because I want to expand on something that Ajay said, and that is this idea that there have been challenges in the past. This is not the first time that we ve seen this kind of Summit with majorly lofty goals. In the past, a lot of them have failed to get off the ground because of regulation, policy, the private sector being skeptical. Walk us through what s different this time when it comes to Mission 300.

[Rajiv Shah]
Well, thank you, Zain, for your leadership and for your opening as well. Extraordinary gratitude and thanks to both Ajay and Akin

[Akinwumi] for the leadership they and their institutions all the way through the teams have shown to bring us to this point. You re right, the world should ask itself, does this Summit in Tanzania matter? Will it deliver something that has a chance to be wildly successful? Frankly, at a time when a lot of global politics has moved towards a more inward and populist focus around our planet. I am extremely confident that the answer to that question is yes. There are three core reasons why. The first is, we all know, everyone in this room knows, in order to have any chance of being successful, this effort has to be African-led at absolutely every level. The fact that 30, more than two dozen African heads of state are coming here, are issuing the compacts that Ajay just described, are signing a declaration, have detailed the policy and regulatory reforms that they are saying they re going to put into place and have created a framework for the private sector to see some regulatory and policy clarity in the next years is an extraordinary initial achievement, and is frankly, without that, we might as well all go home. That s the first reason. The second happened in May. The fact that Ajay and Akin took these two extraordinarily important global financing institutions and said, “Our number one priority on the continent is going to be electrification, that we re putting 30 billion dollars behind it.” Then, we had a successful IDA Replenishment round that makes most of that capital actually available, gives us all confidence that at a time when I think most sub-Saharan African countries are spending more on debt service repayment than they are on health and education, that the capital will be there to support public investment. Let me just remind everyone here, no country on the planet has achieved universal electrification without significant public investment, not one. That is the second reason why this has a chance to be successful. The third is what I heard yesterday from the more than 200 private sector CEOs, investors, partners, grid developers, and entrepreneurs that are present at this Summit. The ingenuity, the technology, the business models, the willingness to take risks, and the sheer capacity for leadership in that private sector community is mission critical to success. I told that group yesterday that the goal of this Summit is to actually create the policy and political and public sector framework to allow the private sector to shine and to thrive. I think those three elements coming together in what is the largest public-private philanthropic partnership designed to create jobs, hope, and opportunity at a time otherwise of political dislocation is uniquely important, and we owe it to each of us in this room to ensure that this project succeeds.

[Zain Asher]
Raj, thank you for that. I loved what you said about the importance of this being African-led, because obviously, we are going to be hearing from a number of African heads of state tomorrow. Dr. Adesina, talk to us about how important that is, that it s African-led, that we have the buy-in from African heads of states, and just give us a sense of how the African Development Bank is working with several African heads of states to really ensure that Mission 300 is a success.

[Akinwumi A. Adesina]
Yeah, well, thank you very much, Zain. You heard from Ajay and also from Raj. I want to first start by thanking High Excellency President, Suluhu Hassan, here for hosting us in this beautiful country of Tanzania. I also want to thank every single one of you for showing up here from around the world to what is a global mission to make sure that Africa has electricity to power itself. You were listening to Ajay and I in our comments on the video. This is mission critical. This is a continent that actually loses 3% to 4% of its GDP every year because of lack of electricity. This is a place where we have 571 million Africans without access to electricity. Talk less of whether it is reliable and affordable and accessible electricity as Ajay was mentioning. This is a continent that accounts for 83% of all the 685 million people in the world, and the Deputy Secretary General of United Nations is here, and we are all driving with UN Secretary General to achieve SDG 7. Our mission here is to say we need everybody. We need the heads of state, and they are going to be here and talk about in a moment. We need the private sector. We need the multilateral developing banks. We need the civil society. We need all of us working to do that. We are not just sitting here representing big institutions about money. It s not about us. It s about those that are not here. It s about those people who are small, medium-size enterprises that are trying to just simply have access to electricity, small and medium-size businesses to run our economies. That s it. It s the people that are not here, and we must listen, and hear, and feel their needs, and make sure that this Summit is an action-driven summit. Ajay let it out very clearly. When he and I started this, we said, “Look, we can t do Mickey Mouse business.” We can have a situation where Africa doesn t have enough electricity. We set up this unprecedented partnership to do it, which is called Mission 300 and we are not alone. Raj is here. He joined us to do that. We have UN Secretary General here, Damilola

[Ogunbiyi] here from the Sustainable Energy for All. We have the Global Energy Partnership for People and for the Planet. We have UN Secretary General, we have my dear friends here, President of Islamic Development Bank,

[Al Jasser], we have Jin Liqun here. It s a partnership that will scale, that will transform. For the heads of state that are going to be here, as you said for your question, what exactly are we going to do? First and foremost, it s their countries. It s got to be country-led actions that actually shows that they are going to deliver electricity to their people. Secondly, is that being their country, they have to increase the budget from their own fiscal budget to support infrastructure, power generation, power transmission, power distribution. They are the ones that are going to make sure that they feel the last mile connectivity there to make sure their people actually have access to electricity. Ajay was talking about the whole issue of reforms in his comment. Yes, the utilities have to be reformed. They have to reduce their technical and financial losses. We have to make sure that we have good independent utilities, procurement systems that are transparent, that are competitive. We got to make sure that we re looking at least cost basis of generating and transmitting energy. We got to make sure, Ajay mentioned, the whole issue of regional distribution. It s not just each country, it s regional transmission lines to make sure the regional power points are working. Those are the things that they have to do. Two things we are expecting from this particular Summit is that the Energy Compact for each of the countries will be signed. We have 13 countries that are going to be part of that, and that will allow us to do 145 million people with access to electricity by 2030. Secondly, it s the Declaration, which is the Declaration of the Summit, which all the heads of state will sign to show that the time has gone for us to deliver on this. All I m trying to say is that if you want to deal with a big problem, it s not about the flag of the African Development Bank or the flag of the World Bank or of anybody else. We have the President of COP here, Babayev here, the Chair of the Global Partnership here. It s not about what we plant, it s about how we work together. This is all about working together. This is all about joining hands. This is all about pulling resources, and this is all about accountability. Because at the end of the day you ask, the question was different. This is not a talking Summit. At the end of the day, it s not what we say. We can do megawatts of talk all we want. It s going to be the megawatts of power that we deliver that actually matters. It s an action-driven Summit, I want to thank you, all that are here today, for joining us in this to make sure that we can have Africa develop with pride, because it cannot develop in the dark. We are determining it s time for Africa to solve this particular issue. Together, we can do exactly that.

[Zain Asher]
Thank you so much, Dr. Adesina. Ajay, as Dr. Adesina said, talk is cheap. This is an action-driven Summit. What do you think are the ideal outcomes over the next two days? What do you want to happen come this time tomorrow or by end of business tomorrow?

[Ajay Banga]
I can just summarize a lot of that. We re going to get these declarations, we re going to get the compacts from these countries, but also what we need to do is the next phase of countries that have to have their Energy Compacts done, we need them to be finalized over the coming days because this is only the first 12. The idea is not to exclude anybody else. It s just its phasing. There s only so much we can do of geospatial mapping, financial calculations, policy change. You got to do it in some phasing. The second piece is that there are a lot of people here from other multilateral development banks we talked about the Islamic Development Bank and the AIIB, but there s also development banks and others, commercial banks here who will get a chance today to listen to these compacts and make sure that they can go back to their clients and represent with accuracy why this is an opportunity that should not be missed. That s the second. The energizing of the network, so to say, has got to happen. No puns intended or energy or network. That s the idea. Then the third part we ve got to get here is that the private sector has got to get the faith and trust that this is real and serious. Let me just add one thought to that. The World Bank is going to be putting somewhere between 30 to 40 billion dollars to work in this effort over the coming years. The idea of putting so much of our IDA money, we had a very good IDA replenishment, which is part of this exercise. But the idea of putting so much of our money to work here is also to enable and make sure that these policy reforms that are being committed by governments actually get enacted. We will pay for results. We re not going to put the money up front and say, “We trust that you will get the policy reforms made.” We re going to give you the money to enable you to create the headroom that you need as a country to make that policy reform happen. It s the same idea of working with the IMF to enable the RST dollars to be available to these countries to create the fiscal headroom. This is putting our money where our mouth is. I would say that s going to be a very critical part, what has to happen over these coming two days. Then for a second, you ve got to step back from all this and think about why we are doing this. Because otherwise, we re going to get caught with the aspect of the tyranny of the small idea here, of this compact and that compact. The real reason we re doing all this is because we have a demographic boom on this continent. Young people are coming of age and they want a job. A job is not just a ticket out of poverty, it is a ticket into dignity. A job is a state of mind. Poverty is not just a state of being, it destroys your mind. That s what jobs do for people. You cannot have jobs without electricity. Electricity is a human right. It gives you energy to do what you need for education, health care, skilling, enabling of jobs, digitization. When people talk about digitizing Africa, one of the things they re planning to do during this exercise is to put cell phone towers into all the locations where we put up distributed solar energy or connect to satellites. Starlink, for example, can enable a lot to happen with digital connectivity. If we can connect 300 million people over the coming years, not just to electricity, but also to digital access, we can transform Africa s potential for jobs for young people over the coming decade. That s what we are here for. The idea of these two days is to excite everybody in this audience of that vision and make sure they can trust that we are putting our money where our mouth is and this is not empty talk, that s the real objective of these two days.

[Applause]

[Zain Asher]
Yeah. I think that s such an important point to underscore that this is not just about power in and of itself. There s obviously a trickle-down effect when it comes to improving electricity access for 300 million people, especially when it comes to economic growth and job creation. Dr. Adesina, when it comes to the private sector, these projects need to be bankable. There has to be a return on investment. Just give us a sense of what the private sector is looking to get out of this when it comes to getting a return.

[Akinwumi A. Adesina]
Thank you very much. I think here at this somewhere, we have a lot of CEOs, we have a lot of project developers that are here, a lot of financial institutions that are here because to actually achieve what we want to do requires more than public sector money, it requires a lot of private sectors. When you re investing in private sector that are actually doing mini-grids which they are going to be very critical for us to get access to those in the underserved areas. It s a lot of work in the mini-grids and also in terms of the solar PV systems and all of those things, pay as you go. The private sector does most of those areas. But the challenge

[that] is facing the private sector, first and foremost, includes first the regulatory environment, again. How do you make sure that if you are doing a procurement system, that that procurement system for your least cost energy supply system or expansion system is transparent and that it is competitive. Second is that the cost of capital. If you look at Africa today, the cost of capital is probably three to four times higher than other parts of the world. The upfront capital cost of doing that is quite a lot. Here is an area where we can play, and we are already playing, all of us, a big role. Take, for example, the whole issue of concessional financing. Ajay was mentioning or you mentioned the case of the IDA21 Replenishment. Ajay, congratulations on that. Great job by you and all of your teams for that. We have also the African Development Fund 17th Replenishment that is coming up, that we are trying to raise 25 billion dollars, and that will be a concessional financing to be able to do a lot more. But beyond that, you also have to look at how do you reduce the risk facing many of the private sector. Whether you re using partial risk guarantees or your partial credit guarantees to buy down the risk and so on, which we do tremendously well. All of us do that very, very well. We have the instruments to do that. But coming back to the issue of who are we doing this for, you can invest in grid system that get into rural areas. First and foremost, let me thank and congratulate Tanzania and our Excellency President, Suluhu Hassan. This country where we are in, they have grid access to all 100% of their villages in this country. That s remarkable for a country. At the end of the day, that last mile connectivity is important. Russia, from Rockefeller Foundation, all the other partners need to have also access to grants because the grant is what you use. You have your tariff structure, this is your cost-reflective tariff, and you have also the mandated tariff that governments have to do. Well, somebody has to buy them that cost. A lot of the time, that can only be done by grant support for many of the countries, and that s included in what we are trying to do. Finally, when it comes to the issue of private sector, it s just the bankability of the projects. Where are the bankable projects? We, at African Development Bank, we support the NEPAD Infrastructure Development Project. We also have Africa 50. I happen to share the board of Africa 50 doing a tremendous job in developing the bankable projects, Rockefeller Foundation, Sustainable Energy for All, all of them, they help in developing bankable projects. We have to have the bankable projects. The last thing I will say about this is all the private sector work that s going on in the energy sector today in Africa will depend on three critical things. One, are the tariffs reflective of the cost? In other words, you must have transparent, cost-reflective, tariffs so they can actually get their money back. The second thing that we have to do is to make sure that the access to capital for those private sectors is not just short term. They need long term low interest capital to be able to do it. Finally, because of the connectivity issue via mini-grids, which a lot of Sustainable Energy for All and everybody is doing… Ourselves and the World Bank, we have to make sure that we support these new IPPs, the independent our producers to have access to capital, to do the mini-grids, and the micro-grids that are required to do that. We have IFC here, and you will be hearing from my brother, Makhtar Diop, later on about a panel about how we are doing this. We need the private sector, but we know that we can do a lot. Last thing, Ajay mentioned IMF, and I m looking for the IMF Deputy Managing Director, she s not here. We as multilateral development banks led by the African Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, and with support of UN Secretary General and DSG Amina Mohammed, I work with IMF on the special drawing rights. Those special drawing rights, we, as multilateral development banks, can leverage those things by up to eight times. A 20-billion-dollar allocation will become 160 billion dollars that we can provide low interest, long-term financing to support and buy down the risk facing the private sector. I think all I m trying to say is that the private sector is critical, but they need governments to do the right thing. They need us to buy down their risk, and they need certainty of the policy environment to bring in the capital investments needed.

[Zain Asher]
Thank you so much, Dr. Adesina. Raj, let me bring you in. Obviously, Dr. Adesina talked about the importance of the private sector, but he also talked about the importance of grants as well. Give us a sense from you at the Rockefeller Foundation, how important philanthropic capital is to de-risk investment and actually catalyze great involvement from the private sector?

[Rajiv Shah]
Well, maybe I ll answer that question from the perspective of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, which is actually a collaborative philanthropic effort of which the Rockefeller Foundation is one part, but the Bezos Earth Fund, the IKEA Foundation, the Children s Investment Fund, MasterCard, Gates, are all collaborating to say, let s try to work together. The reason that s important is because if we re being honest, I think we have to recognize that there is not nearly enough philanthropic capital to matter at all. The only reason philanthropy should even be a part of this is if we can move quickly, if we can take unique risks that others can t take, and if we can do it in a collaborative way. Since Ajay and Akin made their announcement in May between GEAPP and the Rockefeller Foundation, we ve already committed out, I think, 65 million dollars. Not a lot of money relative to the needs here, but being able to move quickly in specific ways that are responsive to the team at the World Bank, to the team at the African Development Bank, and most importantly to the countries themselves, just helps move quickly on things. My plea or request to other philanthropic partners, I think 8 to 10 major philanthropies are represented at this Summit, is please join us. Join us to get behind the ideas and the initiatives and the compacts that the leaders are signing tomorrow and that Ajay and Akin and their teams have been advocating for, we can really only be successful if we are willing to work together. Let me just say two other quick things. Everyone has to behave and operate differently for this project to work. The World Bank team and the African Development Bank team have had to be and have been open and collaborative and willing to try to do things in a different way in order to allow in the private sector and private philanthropy. For that, we are very grateful. The countries themselves are doing something differently by issuing these compacts, signing them at a head of state level, and then committing to creating these country platforms where as this project is implemented, countries can get feedback directly from philanthropic and private commercial partners in the course of implementation. These are different ways of working that are difficult to implement across the board. I think we, in the philanthropic sector, have to recognize that everyone s doing something that s different and hard and important because what s at stake is the future of Africa s economy, a future for Africa s young people, and a future for the stability of our world. We, too, have to behave differently to be productive partners here.

[Zain Asher]
Raj, thank you so much. Ajay, you heard Raj talk about the importance of philanthropic capital, especially when it comes to taking risks that the private sector can t. But obviously, there isn t nearly enough philanthropic capital that s actually going to be able to ensure that Mission 300 achieves its goals. Just explain to us, and you guys have all touched on this already, how important the cross-sector collaboration is? From the private sector to governments to organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation.

[Ajay Banga]
Look, if you step back from all of this, the only way development gets done, the only way jobs get created. What is development? It s not a school or a railway or a road. That s just the work. It s the means to an end. The real end is to give people the dignity of the ability to earn and be constructive and productive in society. That s what we re all here for. The only way that works is with three things. Just bear with me for a minute. The first vertical is the basic foundations of enabling things to work. That s what governments do best. That s what the public part of banks like the African Development Bank and banks like the World Bank do well. IBRD, IDA in our case, we work with governments to help create the basic infrastructure. Then the second vertical is how do you then convert that into two things? One is better governance, and the second is regulatory policies and rules that enable the third vertical, which is the private sector, to become the job-generating engine. 80% of jobs in the world are created with small and medium enterprises, and small shareholder farmers, not from large companies. They need to be able to be built for success, and that requires the right regulatory environment, but also the right access to capital. Those are the three verticals: the public, the knowledge and governance, and then the private. Here s the issue, for them to work well, you need to have access to capital, both priced but also concessional. There is not enough of that in government coffers where fiscal challenges are obvious to all. There is not enough of that in the multilateral banks. There s not enough of that in philanthropies. There is the only solution is involving the private sector in this game. It s their capital, their ingenuity, their technology and their driven people who will help make this happen. We are in this together, and we have to find a way for the development banks and governments to work with the foundations and the private sector. That is the interesting nature of what we re trying to get done. We have access to some concessional capital. IDA, which just had a very successful replenishment, about 30% of IDA goes concessional or grant, as in basically no repayment, no interest. The rest of it goes concessional. So, we have access, but so does Rockefeller, and so do many other foundations. Our request is, bring your shoulder to the wheel. Don t just talk about it. Come here and play and Raj needs to be thanked by all of us for his foundation and his team being willing to step up. He called me up four days after the Spring Meeting. I ll take a minute of your time. I had asked my colleagues, and Anna is sitting where she runs our operations. I asked her, “How many people has the World Bank connected to electricity in the past decade?” I got a number of 100 million. I asked her, “What do you want to do by 2030?” She went away with a look of shock on her face, then came back and said, “How about 200 million?” I said, “That s interesting. How about a little more?” She came back with 250. Now, 250 out of 600 in Africa was an exciting number. Then Akin shows up and we talked and he said, “I m in for 50.” I said, now 300 is a real number. Now we announced it and both of us like deer in the headlights saying, how the heck are we going to get this done? Then Raj shows up. He shows up and says, four days after the announcement, “I have a plan for you and here s how I can help. Here s how I can bring philanthropic money to the table. You bring your capital, Akin brings this, I ll bring philanthropic money.” Honestly, if Raj had not been the catalyst that day, we would have had an even more difficult time to take this forward. Thank you, Raj. Thank you very much.

[Applause]

[Ajay Banga]
I m saying all this not just to thank one foundation. I m saying all this to explain we re all in it together. It s not about one of us. It s not about the other one. We re in it together. If you re going to a difference to jobs for young people, and therefore to take advantage of this demographic boom that is Africa s availability today, but also if we don t take advantage of it, this is going to be a real challenge for African leadership in the coming two decades. So, now s the time to do something about it.

[Zain Asher]
Yeah, this idea that we re all in it together is an important one and a great one to end on because the trust and the confidence the public and private sector is going to be key to Mission 3000s success. Dr. Adesina, with that note, I just want to get you to make some closing remarks for the audience.

[Akinwumi A. Adesina]
Thank you very much, Zain. I just wanted to address one issue that we haven t discussed, which is part of the agenda, which is access to clean cooking for women. Today, we have 1.2 billion women in Africa without access to clean cooking. We lose 300,000 kids every single year that they have mothers carry on their back because of lack of access to clean because of the second effect of smoke. We lose 300,000 women also every year. Why should anybody have to die just for trying to cook a decent meal that is taken for granted in other parts of the world? That is not acceptable. In good conscience, we just can t do that. That s why a big part of what we re trying to do is to make sure that women in Africa can cook decently without having to have smoke, without their kids having to die because of that. We had President Samia here. She spread an incredible global leadership. She showed up for us in Paris together with President Macron. We had a meeting together with International Energy Agency, and we said we needed to raise 4 billion dollars a year. It s all it s going to take, 4 billion dollars a year. We, at African Development Bank, committed to 2 billion dollars towards that. We have to make sure that we give access to... Because it causes deforestation, it causes a lot of biodiversity. It s about life. A lot of times we talk about energy transition, COP29, President, you are here. It s not just about energy transition. Already for women in Africa, they are transitioning life just to be able to cook. It s all about dignity as far as I am concerned. Africa must develop with dignity, with pride, its women, its population must have access to clean cooking solution. I want to commend, once again, President of Tanzania, for having a national strategy. You will see in all of the compacts as you join us that all these countries have committed to being able to have… Tanzania commits to 100% access to clean cooking solutions by 2030. Nigeria committed to that. Ghana is committed to that. So, let s make sure that this aspect is done. And just to close, just to close. Please, Raj said it all. The three of us are simply representing the hope and aspiration of a continent. Join us from bilaterals, from multilaterals, from private sector, from civil society. Join us from foundations to be able to do this. The numbers that Ajay was talking about how we got to 300 million, and your point about this is not the first time we re having this, so it was different. These 300 million, we have a clear path of exactly how it is going to happen. The issue here is making sure that we hold ourselves accountable. We also built in that accountability system into the compact, wherein each of the countries, we will have monitoring and evaluation, we ll also have the Africa Energy Regulatory Index that will allow us to be able to measure the progress that countries are making. This is all about accountability, about transparency, about delivery and also letting Africa develop with pride. You talk about jobs. Ajay talked about jobs, and Ajay is correct. But I want to say one thing about migration because I watch that a lot, and DSG, you are here, and I m very passionate about that particular issue. When we say Africans are migrating, look, even insects migrate. They move from where there s darkness to where there s light. If you want to tackle migration, make sure that Africa has 100% access to electricity. We ll do what Ajay says. They create jobs, we industrialize, we add value to everything that we have. This Summit that you are here from around the world to be, it s about how we unleash, unlock, propel Africa s potential to be able to be what it is. Not what it is, what it can be. I m sure that with power, Africa will more than be what it can be in the world and be a competitive and prosperous continent. Thank you for joining us on that mission. Thank you very much.

[Applause]

[Zain Asher]
Thank you so much, Dr. Adesina. Can we just give each of the panelists one last round of applause as we end this section? Thank you.

WATCH REPLAY 

[Akinwumi A. Adesina] Your Excellency, Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan, President of the United Republic of Tanzania, my dear sister, and our own generous host. Thank you very much, Madam President. Your Excellency, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and Chairman of the African Union. Your Excellencies, heads of state and government. The Chairperson of the African Union, Commission Foundation, the Deputy Secretary General of United Nations, my dear sister, Amina Mohammed, the President of the World Bank Group, my brother Ajay [Banga], President of Rockefeller Foundation, Raj [Rajiv Shah], heads of multilateral development finance institutions, honorable ministers, private sector leaders, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Africa Energy Summit. I wish to thank your Excellency, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, for graciously and generously hosting us for this Summit. You are such a remarkable leader. It’s always a joy to be in Tanzania. I wish to express our deepest appreciation to the chairman of the African Union, President Ghazouani, the President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, for co-hosting this Summit. I am extremely grateful to you, your Excellencies, heads of state and government, for honoring our invitation, for being here in such large and unprecedented numbers. It shows the high priority and the political commitment you place on expanding the access of your populations to electricity. Access to electricity is critical for Africa’s economic growth.

The lack of adequate electricity reduces the GDP of Africa by 2% to 4%. Your Excellencies, since the African Development Bank Group launched the New Deal on Energy for Africa in 2016, at the start of my first time as President of the African Development Bank. Working with all our partners, significant progress has been made in expanding access to electricity. The share of the population with access to electricity in Africa significantly increased from 39% in 2015 to 52% in 2024. The African Development Bank Group has supported over 25 million people to have access to electricity. However, despite the progress being made, Africa still has 571 million people without electricity, accounting for 83% of the global population without electricity. Over 1 billion people do not have access to clean cooking solutions, which negatively impacts on women’s health, children’s health, and lives. We must take decisive actions to further drive down these numbers. That is why Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group, and I joined together to launch the Mission 300 with a goal of expanding access of 300 million people in Africa to electricity by 2030.

Mission 300 has grown into a global movement, and we were joined by the African Union Commission, several global partners, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Sustainable Energy for All of the United Nations, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, and we are not alone. We have just been joined as well by the Islamic Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the French Development Agency, in our efforts to develop more, and several bilateral development agencies. We will not succeed, your Excellencies, if we do not work closely and more openly with more space for the private sector. That is why we are delighted that several leading CEOs from around the world have joined us today. Critical reforms will be needed to expand the share of renewables, improve functioning and performance of utilities, transparency in licensing, power purchase agreements, and predictable tariff’s regimes that reflect the cost of production. The private sector will also need to play a critical role to expand mini-grids and off-grid systems to reach millions of people without access to grid-based power in rural areas, our collective effort is to support you, our heads of state and government, to develop and to implement clear actions embedded in country-led national energy compacts, your compacts, to deliver on your visions for electricity in your respective countries. The African Development Bank and the World Bank have developed a very clear path to achieving the 300 million access goal. Together, the African Development Bank and the World Bank will commit 40 billion dollars towards the Mission 300. With 18.2 billion dollars from the African Development Bank and 22 billion dollars from the World Bank Group. Ajay will talk about that when he comes on board. It is an unprecedented alliance. Thank you very much, Ajay. We couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much to Raj, President of Rockefeller Foundation, for providing critical technical assistance, support of 20 million dollars that made the preparation of the country energy compacts possible. Thank you very much to you and your colleagues. Your Excellencies, Support for Mission 300 keeps pouring in. Yesterday, at the first day of the Summit, several development partners made huge announcements in support of Mission 300. The President of the Islamic Development Bank Group announced 2.65 billion dollars in support. The President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank announced 1.5 billion dollars in support. The President of the OPEC Fund announced 1 million dollars in support, and the French government will be making a major announcement today. We are confident that other development partners here and elsewhere will join us and announced their respected commitments either today or after.

Your Excellencies, as I close, I would like to thank you and to say we need your personal leadership to get this done. Together, let us decisively use Mission 300 to deliver 300 million people in Africa with access to electricity in all your countries by 2030. The African Development Bank’s 20 billion dollar Desert to Power program will complement Mission 300, and develop 10,000 megawatts of solar power across 11 Sahelian countries, and provide access to electricity for an additional 250 million people. Therefore, the Mission 300 and the Desert to Power working collectively will provide 550 million Africans with electricity. That, your Excellencies, will deliver universal access to electricity for Africa. What a difference that will make for your respective countries. And what a difference that will make for Africa. You will be remembered, your Excellencies, as the presidents who gave your countries 100% access to electricity, you will be remembered as the presidents who said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” Thank you very much, and I thank this honor. [Applause] [Lively music]

[Austin Makani] Can we extend another round of applause to Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, for that wonderful remark? From ideas to action to accelerate energy access. Your Excellencies, allow me now to invite to the podium Mr. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group, for his remarks, to be followed by Dr. Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. As he gets to the stage, let’s give him another round of applause. [Applause]

[Ajay Banga] Madam President, I want to start by thanking you, like all of us have done since yesterday, for the generosity, but also the focus and energy of your government and your people to making this possible. Thank you once again. [Applause] To my partners, Akin [Akinwumi A. Adesina] and Raj [Rajiv Shah], I could not believe that we would get to this point when we started this journey last year. It started out at the Spring Meetings of the World Bank-IMF meeting, and it started out with us saying that the World Bank would reach 250 million people by 2030, and the African Development Bank would add 50 million. Then Raj Shah called me up a few days later and said, “I have a proposal for you, I’d like to help you,” and that spirit of contribution that Akin and Raj have shown from day one is why we are all here together. So, thank you to both of you. [Applause]

[Ajay Banga] I have a very simple agenda for all of us here, heads of state, who are showing your participation and your support for us. We need every ounce of your support, but the reality is your people need it even more than all of us do. Over the next decade, 360 million young people in Africa will be ready to enter the workforce. That same decade, the African system is expected to only offer jobs to 150 million of these, leaving three out of every five young people without the opportunity of a job which gives you not just earning, but dignity. I think, if Africa is to achieve its objectives of taking advantage of its demographic dividend over this coming period, then all of us need to change this idea because forecasts are not destiny. Forecasts are not destiny. We can change this. We can help those three out of five people. While journeys are fueled by hope, the reality is they are only realized by deeds. It is deeds that we are here together to discuss. Our mission to address the fundamental challenge of providing electricity to half of this continent’s people, 300 million, who do not have access. This is just the critical first step. M-300 is the cornerstone of a jobs’ agenda. It is not just about electricity. It is not just about clean cooking. It is not just about health care. It is about people, and their optimism, and their hope for dignity. This is the cornerstone of a jobs’ agenda. It is the foundation for future development, and we would like to be your partners as we go forward. To succeed, we all have to embrace a very simple truth. No one can do it alone. Governments cannot do it alone, businesses cannot do it alone, philanthropies cannot do it alone, development banks cannot do it alone, but together we can. Only through collaboration can we achieve this idea of making it possible. Governments are the architects of reform. They craft the policies, the regulations that drive progress, but they are also the engineers of investment. They leverage their resources to finance essential infrastructure. Over the past year, we’ve worked alongside leaders of your countries to develop country-specific plans. These are rooted in data. They’re endorsed at the highest levels by you, and they are aligned with very clear goals of reform. These plans focus on affordable power generation, on expanding connections, and on regional integration, and regional electrical markets. They aim to boost the efficiency of utilities. They aim to attract private investment, and the idea is to deliver reliable, sustainable electricity. These are going to require political will, persistence, and a long-term vision. So, amid fiscal challenges, governments will also need the support to meet these infrastructure goals. That is where the IMF, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, all our partners that Akin referred to, that’s the role we can play to help you free up resources. But for the private sector, a lot of our friends and colleagues who are in this room, this effort represents both a challenge and an opportunity. We need your innovation, we need your efficiency, we need your people, we need your creativity, we need your capacity to scale. To facilitate your investment, we’ve identified those regulatory policy barriers, we are working to eliminate them. We will put our money at that point where if these policy barriers are removed, our money is put to work. This is a pay for results effort that we are putting in. Our plans will create the environment where your investments can generate returns while driving meaningful impact. That’s going to take calculated risks, and every development bank here sees that we are ready to be your partner throughout this. For the World Bank Group, I can promise you, our equity and guarantees, our resources, resources to help de-risk investments and support your efforts. By aligning private capital with public priorities, we think we can achieve results that none of us could do alone. Philanthropies, people like Raj and his team, and development banks like the others here provide the financial backbone. We bring the conception, the testing, the investment through concessional financing. The global community’s generosity last year secured a record 100 billion dollars replenishment for IDA, funding that is essentially to this effort. Over the coming five to six years, and this is the only place where I’d like to correct my friend Akin, the World Bank is actually putting 30 to 40 billion dollars into this effort, which is roughly… [Applause]

[Ajay Banga] Which if you think about it, if you’re putting 100 billion into IDA, a large chunk of IDA is going into this effort to help Africa enable its people, its young people, to achieve their dreams and their aspirations, which is exactly what the money should be for. So, this is the right priority being put to the right work. While Mission 300 is a centerpiece, it is part of a broader energy strategy. We are also working on energy projects, including investments in natural gas that I believe will help to support a just energy transition. That’s vital for powering industries like agriculture, health care, and manufacturing. These are the sectors, of those of you will remember who were in the Nairobi summit when I spoke, these are the sectors that will create jobs and growth that this generation demands. That’s our strategy for the World Bank Group’s next phase, ensuring that job creation is not a byproduct of our work, but it is an explicit aim of our operation. We are dedicated and focused to get young people the chance and the opportunity they deserve in their lives. This will take collective effort. You. [Applause][Ajay Banga] Thank you, thank you. Governments must drive reforms. The private sector, all my friends and partners here, you need to invest with confidence and trust. We in the development banks, we must deliver the financing, we must uphold accountability. This will demand hard work and vision, but remember, all this is within reach if we do this together. I’m very grateful to all here. I thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your journey. I think all my colleagues of the World Bank Group are enthused by the idea of being a part of Mission 300. Thank you once again, Madam President, and thank you for all of you. Good luck. [Applause] [Lively music]

[Austin Makani] Thank you very much, Mr. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group, for those wonderful remarks, from ideas to action to accelerate energy access. Your Excellency, please allow me now to invite Dr. Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. His remarks will be followed by the President of the COP29. As he is on the stage, let’s give him a round of applause. [Applause]

[Rajiv Shah] Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much, Austin, for getting us started. I also want to thank our host, Her Excellency President Samia. It’s an honor to be with you and to be in your wonderful country. I’d like to share my respect, humility, and honor towards all of the heads of state and Excellencies from across the continent that are demonstrating by your presence and your leadership that today is a demonstration of powerful African leadership and a strong African vision of economic growth and success. I would like to offer a very special thank you to those we seek to help, Akin, Ajay, and your extraordinary teams. We are only here today because each of you made courageous decisions to make extraordinary financial commitments at a time of genuine fiscal need across the continent. I would like to highlight that I represent today not just the Rockefeller Foundation, but also the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, a group of philanthropies, partners, and private companies that have come together to try to do what Ajay has asked us to, which is to work together in partnership so we can achieve much more impact as opposed to going at it alone. Africa has been reaching for electricity for 140 years. Streetlights first arrived in Dar es Salaam in 1908. In an effort to create jobs and advanced developments, since then, you, the leaders of this great continent, have tamed some of the continent’s mightiest rivers, developed plans and built grids, climbed utility poles and spliced wires. And yet, despite those efforts, too many African families and businesses lack access to productive power for growth and for jobs. 600 million Africans live without basic electricity access. Another 500 million simply don’t have the productive, affordable, always on electricity, which is an absolute requirement for job creation in a global digital economy. Africa needs to create millions of jobs, as Ajay just noted. This effort is ultimately about creating those jobs and allowing for that dignity for those youth that are entering the labor force, as Ajay noted. Every year to do so, we will need to replace expensive diesel generators as the source of power for so many African small businesses with cheap, always on electricity. That is what Mission 300 is all about. It would be easy to be skeptical about whether or not this, the largest public-private partnership on the continent today designed to lift up hundreds of millions of people, could actually achieve the ambitious targets that Ajay and Akin and all of you, respected heads of state, have set for us. I believe there are three reasons why this initiative will succeed when perhaps others over that 140-year history have failed. First, Mission 300 is led by you, African leaders. Your compacts, your commitments, your targets, and most importantly, your absolute determination to implement the policy reforms that you are signing on to publicly today offer hope and clarity for the private sector, for philanthropy, and for your development partners. Thank you, and we will follow your lead. Second, Mission 300 is catalyzing extraordinary concessional resources at a time of absolute fiscal need on this continent. That is a testament to the leadership of the two banks, and Ajay to you in particular for bringing us together and kicking this off. I think it will take your private sector background and your determination to hold us all to account to achieve our targets in order to be successful, but to put this level of resources into a single effort with a single quantitative measurable set of outcomes gives us hope and inspires transformation. And third, this effort is in fact a public, private, philanthropic partnership. It is different from other initiatives I’ve been a part of. Just in the last six months, watching how the teams at the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and each of your nations are collaborating openly, sharing data, using GIS planning to site new locations for mini-grids and other new technology solutions, and being open to new technology solutions that today are at a price point where this vision of success is affordable and possible, and in fact, the least-cost way to provide universal electrification gives me hope that this will, in fact, be different and be successful. Mission 300 is an opportunity to work together and to work together differently. We pledge support as helpers and quiet helpers at every level of this project to ensure that decades from now, people look back on yesterday and today and say what happened in Dar es Salaam, much like turning the streetlights on in 1908 transformed a continent and transformed generations for the future. Thank you. [Applause] [Lively music]

[Austin Makani] Thank you so much, Dr. Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, for your wonderful remarks. Your Excellencies, before we proceed, allow me to recognize the presence of His Highness Sheikh Shakhboot Al Nahyan, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, and the Representative of His Honor, Sheikh Mohamed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. Can we give him a big round of applause? [Applause] [Austin Makani] From ideas to action to accelerate the energy access. Your Excellencies, please allow me now to invite His Excellency Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 President, for his remarks to be followed by those of Dr Kamugisha Kazaura, Director from the African Union Commission. Let’s give him a round of applause as is already at the podium. [Applause]

[Mukhtar Babayev] Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear friends, good morning. It is an honor to journey in beautiful Tanzania to address this important issue. I would like to thank all African governments for the support that you gave to COP29 Presidency in Baku to help bring parties together and confront climate crises together. Ladies and gentlemen, when we looked to the Presidency, it became evident that the global financial system was failing to meet Africans’ needs. Investment in clean energy has not matched the demands of your rising population. You deserved more, and COP29 is a chance to change, but the multilateral system was under pressure. People doubted that countries could agree and the process could deliver. We made a new finance deal our top negotiating priority. We were confident that the goal had to be fair and ambitious. When a target of 250 billion dollars was initially suggested, we were clear that we needed to go further. We refused to close the conference, and in the final moments of extra time, we landed a deal on the Baku finance goal. This is a goal to mobilize at least 300 billion dollars per year to the developing world by 2035. This triples the previous goal. It also provided a framework to scale up climate finance to 1.3 trillion dollars per year. It is the largest financial target to come from UN climate process. It will help advance the Mission 300 initiative to provide electricity access to 300 million people in Africa by 2030. It will mean more energy infrastructure for Africa. It will mean more power for homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals. It will mean more opportunity for people across this continent. Excellencies, our job is not finished. National energy compacts from this Summit will help guide international financial flows to your priorities. They will help global donors address your needs such as clean cooking, which we already made progress on over the last year. Furthermore, many parties of the financial system still need to be fixed. As the COP29 Presidency, we will continue to champion the needs of Africa on the world stage. We will hold governments to account for the promises they made in Baku, Azerbaijan. We will work with multilateral development banks and the private sector to scale up climate finance. We will remind people how COP can deliver and why we must invest today to save tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, the active engagement of African governments was critical to our collective success. Azerbaijan is proud of what we achieved together, and we look forward to building on this partnership together. I thank you, Asante Sana. [Applause] [Lively music]

[Austin Makani] Thank you very much, Your Excellency Mukhtar Babayev, the COP29 President, for those wonderful remarks. Your Excellencies, as we are now looking on to ideas to action to accelerate the energy access, allow me to request to the podium, the representative of the African Union Commission to come and deliver the remarks to be followed by those by Ms. Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, and Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group. But for now, the representative of the African Union Commission. [Lively music] [Austin Makani] Your Excellencies, allow me to invite Ms. Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, and the Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group, for her remarks to be followed by those of His Excellency, President Mohamed Ghazouani, President of the Mauritania. [Applause]

[Amina Mohammed] Your Excellency, President Samia Suluhu Hassan. Excellencies, Majesties, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is a real pleasure to join you here all today, and I extend my heartfelt appreciation to Her Excellency, President Hassan, and to her government, the United Republic of Tanzania, for hosting Mission 300 Energy Summit. But I’d like also to underscore her incredible leadership and her vision that we are all here today and gathered as an African continent. I would also like to thank the African Union for keeping fire under our feet to do the right thing for the continent. Congratulations to my two brothers, the African Development Bank Group, Akin, and to the World Bank Group, Ajay. These are incredible partnerships, partnerships that bring genuine experience decades from the public sector to the private sector. I think it’s why we’re looking to the success of this union. But also, to the Rockefeller Foundation for a strong and meaningful partnership, one that brings key stakeholders together in this room. Your bold investments are a testament to Africa’s potential for a sustainable and resilient future. Today, Africa has one of the lowest levels of energy access, as we have heard, but it is also one of the most vulnerable to intensifying climate shocks. Yet our continent is rich in renewable energy resources and critical minerals, which are all essential for the energy transition, and benefit from limited sunk costs and fossil fuel-intensive energy infrastructures. Africa is also home to a vibrant, young and enterprising population. This provides immense potential for Africa to show the rest of the world what a new economic development paradigm grounded in sustainability, resilience, justice, and inclusivity can look like. Enhanced energy access, affordability and reliability is not only crucial for achieving our Sustainable Development Goal 7, but it also serves as a catalyst for broader development goals. Access to clean and sustainable energy underpins progress in health, in education, in gender equality, while driving economic growth and climate action, many of the 17 goals. By advancing long-term energy security and sovereignty, we can foster peace, we create green jobs, and build resilient livelihoods, paving the way for improved stability and prosperity across our continent. With renewables now being the cheapest source of new electricity almost everywhere on Earth, Mission 300’s bold commitment to connect 300 million people to electricity by 2030 represents a transformative opportunity for Africa. Combined with systemic initiatives like the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, Africa is uniquely positioned to lead the global energy transition. By powering essential sectors such as healthcare, education, commerce, bolstering industries like solar manufacturing, grid infrastructure, and clean energy solutions, renewable energy can unlock unprecedented economic potential. With reliable energy access, the continent’s 147 million small and medium enterprises, key drivers of economic growth, will have the tools to scale, to innovate, and create jobs, turning energy into a true catalyst for inclusive and sustainable progress. Tanzania stands as a shining example of how rural electrification and off-grid renewable energy solutions can transform lives, particularly in remote and underserved areas. The country has made remarkable strides, with electricity access increasing from just 14% in 2011 to 46% in 2022. What does that mean? It has led to over one million new connections, driving a rural electrification rate of 72%. In November 2024, more than 60,000 social institutions were connected to the REA, benefiting 12,905 educational institutions, 6,768 health facilities, over 8,000 places of worship, and 29,000 commercial areas. This progress means that more boys and girls in remote areas can now study in well-lit classrooms. Health workers can deliver lifesaving services to off-grid populations, and rural businesses can thrive with reliable power. Tanzania demonstrates how energy access is not just about electricity. It is about opportunity, equity, and the foundation of a brighter future and a life of dignity for everyone. We must ensure that Mission 300 seizes the opportunity that lies ahead. With five years to the endpoint of the SDGs and having completed the first decade of implementing the African Union’s 2063 agenda, it is clear that transformation efforts remain insufficient. I would like to deeply commend the African leadership that is here today as you seek solutions to address Africa’s energy access, its climate vulnerability, and development challenges holistically. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we have to accelerate our collective efforts to fast track the solution for SDG 7, but also the Paris Agreement and propel Africa to become a clean energy powerhouse. This requires urgent action in three key areas beyond this Summit. First, creating the right enabling environment to attract scaled private public investments through stronger, stable, and more coherent policy and regulatory frameworks. We are very pleased to see, and thank you, Ajay, for the private sector that is here today and that we hope will accompany us through this very difficult, but at the end, profitable journey. This year, every party to the UN Climate Convention has committed to submitting a new economy-wide National Climate Action Plan that is aligned with the 1.5-degree world that we need well before COP30 in November. If done right, these climate plans should align with national energy strategies and development priorities, and they would double as investment plans to seize the potential of renewables, helping us to eradicate poverty and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, the Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals offers important principles and actionable recommendations to ensure that we do not repeat historical patterns of exploitation on this continent. Second, mobilizing affordable, accessible, and adequate finance. The chronic underinvestment in renewable energy in Africa and long-standing structural barriers, such as the exorbitant capital costs, mean that a continent with the potential to be a renewable powerhouse accounts for less than 1% of global installed solar capacity. It is why we’re calling for an SDG stimulus to scale up affordable long-term financing for developing countries, and for the Baku to Belem roadmap of 1.3 trillion dollars to bridge the climate gap by leveraging all sources and by addressing unjust and structural barriers. Last year’s Pact of the Future sent an unequivocable message, reform of the international financial architecture is urgent and essential. This pact would not have got across the line, if not for the leadership of the African leaders in the United Nations. It spoke to strengthening the voice and the representation of developing countries. It spoke to mobilizing far greater levels of financing for the SDGs and direct the financing to countries that are most in need. It spoke to enabling countries to borrow sustainably and with confidence to invest in their long-term development, but it also spoke to provide effective and equal support to countries during systemic shocks. Finally, multilateralism, our international corporations, still remains our best hope for delivering solutions at the necessary scale and speed. I know to many of us, as we look around to the geopolitical challenges that we have today, multilateral doesn’t seem like the best offer on the table, but it is. It is a place that we come to. It is a global townhall for our global village. It is where we see visibility and we can shine a light on the opportunities, but also that we can also give hope, give hope to the millions that look to us to serve them. The UN remains dedicated to supporting your efforts every step of the way. Through our UN expertise and presence in the country, we are committed to supporting Mission 300, the African Development Bank, the World Bank, and we are committed to helping identify and to attract investments that will strengthen the policy environment, the regulatory environment, that will secure resources that are needed to make Mission 300 a success. Finally, I would like also to commend our special representative. It’s not often that we have women in leadership positions. Today, we are hosted by a great leader that is a woman, but we also have… [Applause]

[Amina Mohammed] We speak to the intergenerational challenges that we have, and we also have a special representative of the UN on Sustainable Energy for All, Damilola Ogunbiyi, who is playing a critical role within the Mission 300. It is a critical countdown to 2030. Let’s ensure that Mission 300 delivers concrete outcomes towards the SDGs, Paris Agreement, and Agenda 2063. Let’s seize that moment to accelerate and to deliver transformative progress. Together, I am sure that Africa can lead the way for the energy transition, creating lasting prosperity, resilience for generations to come, but actions and aspirations fulfilled today for our women and for our youth. Thank you. [Applause] [Lively music]

WATCH REPLAY 

[Linda Mabhena-Olagunju] We’ll get straight into our panel discussion. I think we’ve had a lot of delays today. As mentioned, my name is Linda Mabhena-Olagunju, and I am the founder and CEO of DLO, which I’m proud to say is 100% black female-owned independent power producer operating in South Africa, and we own one of the largest wind farms in that country. Starting with you, Makhtar [Diop], I want to get a sense from you. We’ve seen a number of renewable energy programs being rolled out on the African continent, but even at that, we haven’t seen the uptake that we would like to see. Even in my home country, renewables currently account for less than 10% of the supply on our national grid. How do you see the private sector playing a more active role in terms of investment? What do you see as some of the challenges that have prevented a bigger uptake in renewable energy investments on the continent?

[Makhtar Diop] Thank you very much. I would like to thank all the head of states for their presence and leadership on this. If you allow me, I will step out of renewable energy and talk about electricity in general, because renewable energy is part of the story, but part of the story is not linked to renewable energy. I think that we are currently working towards accelerating. I think that we’re at an historical moment, and I think that this meeting will be certainly having a declaration [that] will be as important as the Yamoussoukro Declaration that you have in air transport or the Bamako Declaration that was held by the head of states on the health sector. We are looking at the three components of electricity production in Africa. We have generation, you have transmission, and you have distribution. I think that, if we want to reach our targets, we need to work on these three segments. On generation, I think that we have turned the corner, and I think that country like Nigeria and other countries have shown that, that generation is now mainly done by the private sector. If we are old enough to remember that there was a time where people were saying, generation should be done only by the public sector, it’s the strategic sector. We have turned the corner, and today, a big chunk of the production of electricity is done by the private sector. Now the private sector, it should be and it could be in financing this very expensive asset, which is transmission. I think the number one question for me, and the number of challenges that we need to address if we want to reach this target, is to bring the private sector in financing transmission. It means that in a lot of countries, we need to unbundle the system so that we can bring the local savings, the pension funds, the private investors locally, internationally, to finance this important, critical, essential asset, which is transmission.

The second one is distribution. A lot of the distribution companies are under-capitalized, are not in a good financial situation, and are therefore; not able to invest in operation and maintenance, which is so important. That’s why actually a lot of the power outages you have in Africa are not linked often to production. They are often linked to the distribution. The network is not robust enough to be able to distribute it. What can we do to improve the quality of the distribution companies? I would like to say that we have a time where we can change the paradigm. We need to have more investment equity. I will suggest that we open the capital of the distribution companies and we make it public. I think we need to think about a way to take the distribution companies and take them to a stock exchange. For me, that will be having many effects. First, it will allow the domestic savings not to fly out of the country, but to be invested in productive assets. Secondly, it will allow the pension funds and institutional investors to invest in it. The government can decide, depending on the decision of the head of state and the country, to give the majority or not to give the majority. But what is important is that we need to inject more capital in this distribution companies so that they can do what is needed. These are the three elements, and I think that we are seeing some movements. In South Africa, they’re currently discussing now the regulatory framework on how to bring transport, private sector investment in transport. Nigeria has been working also on this question, but a lot of other African countries. I think that, if we can take some of the discussion and try to see practically what we can do to be able to bring more private capital in transmission and more private capital in distribution, I think that we will be able to build on what has been done on generation and accelerating.

On generation, you have two components. The second component is to continue helping the country to clean their matrix. For that, for the most polluting part of their matrix, they can use transition resources like gas, gas to power, to substitute for coal, to substitute for heavy fuels, and all these very polluting sources of electricity while accelerating the production of renewables. I think that we have very good examples. I’ll leave it to some of our colleagues and clients we are working with here who have been investing heavily in renewables, are showing opportunities which are before us, and we are ready. Lastly, I would like to say an announcement, Zafiri, which is a new fund that we put in place to finance the decentralized renewable energy.

I would like to thank Raj [Rajiv] Shah and President [Akinwumi] Adesina because we are working together. It’s a very new approach. All these companies that we met need equity. They don’t have enough equity to invest in that sector. We are putting together a fund of 1 billion dollars to be able to finance this equity, where we will be taking a big part of the risk on the balance sheet of DFIs by taking the junior trench. We are receiving grant money from the foundations, like Rockefeller or other foundations, the money from IDA and the AfDB, and that we allow to get capital from those who are. I would like to say, and President Tinubu, I would like to announce that yesterday, you signed the first project using this facility for Nigeria, where yesterday we signed for 70 million of mandate to support this decentralized renewable energy. This is the journey for us, which goes beyond renewables, but includes larger renewables. I will let some of my colleagues here to talk about it because they are the ones who have been making this huge investment in this sector. Thank you.

[Linda Mabhena-Olagunju] No, thank you for that. That dovetails. That’s an excellent announcement because one of the big things we struggle with as entrepreneurs in the space, whether you’re dealing with transmission, distribution, or generation, is the issue of equity. If we look at what was said by the World Bank earlier on, we’re going to have to create jobs in the African economy. In order to do that, you are going to have to create local developers and local players. A missing piece is usually the equity check, especially for early-stage development for developers that are Africans, that retain the capital on this continent and that employ the Africans on this continent. But dovetailing to what you’ve already done is the IFC, I’d like to come to you, Aminu. If you could tell us a bit about the 500 million investment and partnership with the IFC on the distribution side. Could you tell us a bit more about that transaction and on what it means?

[Aminu Umar-Sadiq] Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll just take a step back to perhaps offer a perspective, and then I can deep dive into that. I think following on from President Tinubu’s energy transition agenda, at the start of 2024, the NSIA and our coordinating minister of the economy actually conceptualized, developed, and operationalized renewable energy platform called Ripple. What that platform does is essentially address the value dislocations in the energy access sector. It does so by essentially being a developer, an investor, and an operator of a plethora of different kinds of projects, particularly around PV manufacturing, around franchising, which is essentially being a disco within a disco, and of course, diesel displacement. In the last 12 months, we have actually closed on two transactions, the first being a co-located solar PV farm alongside one of our hydro plants, as well as a PV manufacturing outfit in Lagos. As Mr. Diop mentioned, I think equity is the key in this regard, and I think this is what we offer through Ripple, but I think importantly, it’s also important to put the focus on local currency capital mobilization. The NSIA has done that through a facility called InfraCredit. Essentially, what this facility does is to mobilize local currency capital to domestic infrastructure, with a particular focus on distributed renewable energy. I’m proud to say that working with the World Bank and our coordinating minister of the economy, we’re also essentially establishing financial guarantor not only for DRE projects, but for large-scale infrastructure projects, particularly on-grade projects, transmission projects, and so on and so forth. I think, finally… [Audio cuts off]

[Aminu Umar-Sadiq] Alongside Africa50 as well as SEforALL, around a DRE-specific platform. The organizing principles around this platform are the following. The first is that it’s important to have a local manager tied in with a continental manager, NSIA being the local manager and Africa50 being the continental manager, to ensure that whatever key learnings that we essentially undertake in the course of implementing this DRE platform in Nigeria, we’re able to have the benefits of that as we proliferate across the continent. I think the second is around the capitalization structure. Equity is key, and I think that’s where NSIA and Africa50 are going to come in on the hard currency equity side, but also it’s important to attract equity on the local currency side, particularly for pension funds. We’ve been having discussions with the IFC around how to provide the requisite guarantees to actually mobilize local currency on the equity side for that platform. Then, of course, at the project level, you would have local currency debt. I think that capitalization structure is also extremely key. Then the third and final component of that platform is to make sure we take a whole of ecosystem approach. This platform, in and of itself, investing directly will not move the needle. But if we collaborate with financial sponsors like Chapel Hill Denham, like InfraCredit, who have a first loss capital in place, who have a deep pipeline of DRE projects in place, who are able to mobilize a foundation funds, but they lack the equity, this platform is able to finance that equity. Similarly, for financial partners and for operating partners who have bankable projects, who are able to access the debt but lack the equity, this platform would also execute upon that. I think a combination of these three organizing principles makes ourselves, Africa50 and SEforALL, with support from the IFC, excited that we can make a difference to this space. Thank you. [Linda Mabhena-Olagunju] Thank you. I want to dig deeper, though. Let’s unpack that a bit. At what stage is your equity coming in? Is it coming in when the projects are at 80% of development? Is it coming in at an early-stage development? Because once you reach 80%, you’ve already derisked your project and you can easily raise a check. What Africa is lacking right now is people who are ready to come in before we’ve actually achieved the early-stage permitting. If you’re going to unlock the potential of the projects that exist on this continent, we almost need an answer to the risk capital question mark at that early stage.

[Aminu Umar-Sadiq] Very good question. I think, of course, there’s a place for project preparatory facilities, and I think it is those facilities that actually address that. But equity, fundamentally, is in place to take exactly that risk. I think the focus of our platform would be not only Brownfield, cash-producing propositions, but also the very, very early stage at-risk development propositions. I think it’s only if we engage within that portion of the value chain that we will begin to make a difference.

[Linda Mabhena-Olagunju] Agreed. Patrick, you have had great success on the continent as TotalEnergies in terms of the renewable energy projects as well as other types of technologies, gas to power, etcetera. In South Africa, I think you’ve got a pipeline of 700 megawatts. Someone like you who has led this organization that has perceived success, what are some of the challenges you have faced developing projects on this continent?

[Patrick Pouyanné] Thank you. First, it’s an honor to be invited today. I’m happy to be with all of you, the head of states, Summit for Energy for Africa, for of course, obviously, for Total, which became TotalEnergies, it’s, I would say, our homeland, Africa. For oil and gas, we should not forget that oil and gas is today the bread and butter for many of these countries, but also for renewables. We embarked in a strategy where we want to do both and the renewable projects in Africa. I will be honest with you, yes, we have today 1.4 gigawatts have already operated or being built, but it’s not an easy journey. I think there are two, I would say, main challenges. I’ve already said that. The first one was mentioned by my friend of IFC, it’s the transmission system. When you want to build a renewable farm, you need to connect it to the grid. It’s a challenge in many countries, especially in Africa. Then you need to transport this electricity. It’s obvious that today when you have a distribution company which is managing both transmission and distribution, it’s difficult in term of huge capital to attract. I was discussing the issue yesterday with one President of Mozambique, where we have a large hydro project. I told him we cannot start the hydro because we don’t see the transmission line behind it. Frankly, we can attract, you can attract financial international investors, private investors on production like us on hydro, but you could also attract international and private investors on infrastructure. A transmission line is an infrastructure, but it has to be managed, as you said, by attracting more capital. Otherwise, I’m afraid this bottleneck will remain.

The second one, which is, I would tell you, even more important, is to be able to have a bankable PPA. What does that mean? But even my friend of IFC, they like to make profits like us. If you want to establish, when you are a renewable developer, you want to go to financing to banks, commercial banks, which all have a lot of commitments to develop renewables, green energy, plenty of hundreds of millions of dollars. What they want to be sure is that you need to secure the revenues of the project. It seems obvious, but you know that in this continent, they might have some difficulties of payments, local payments. We are asking for some form of guarantees. Guarantees, in fact, when you look to the project, there are not a lot of defaults. It’s just that the financial institutions they want some guarantees. Of course, we turn to the states, but the states, quite often, the IMF tell them, “Don’t give guarantees.” The IMF is a brother or something. Cousin from IFC. I think if it’s not the state which can give this guarantee, we need to have, and I think the World Bank CEO was there, but his representative, IFC is there, we absolutely need to have in place an instrument of guarantee for being able to develop all this PPA.

The international financial institutions have discussed it for years. Each time I’m participating to a conference, it’s now time to action. I hope that this M-300 that you launch today will be the opportunity to really have instruments, the World Bank, the MIGA, etcetera, but we need to have it because otherwise, honestly, I’m afraid we cannot put it at scale. The potential in the continent, not only on solar, but also on hydro is huge. So, this question of guarantee and financial institution or whoever it is, we should not be afraid. We don’t face many defaults. It’s just a question of comfort.

On TotalEnergies, we have done in some countries, in Iraq, but also in Libya, in Angola, try to make some links between all, I would say, all business and this renewable business by using, I would say, the proceeds which we got from oil as guarantee to renewables. It’s a solution which can work for us because we produce oil and gas, but it could not work for everybody. They could have some initiatives, and this is really a major point if we want to accelerate. I would say as well that, of course, and I would like to chime in, in Africa, it’s very important, in 2024, we took two initiatives. The first one is about clean cooking, and I praise President Samia of Tanzania. I think it’s very important, but when you speak about clean cooking, fundamentally, the easiest way to deploy clean cooking is LPGs. It’s back to gas. I know that there are some new methodologies of cooking, of cookstoves, but LPG is available in Africa. We committed the company to invest 400 million dollars to reach 85 million Africans with LPGs. If you combine these LPGs which are available, for example, in our projects in Uganda, we have a huge source of LPG, and we can use the LPG to deploy bottles, the LPG bottles, into Uganda, to all the neighbors in Tanzania and other countries. This is a very pragmatic way to bring this reliable energy and clean energy, because it’s much better than charcoal or wood. For women in Africa, it’s a huge progress. We are combining it, by the way, because one of the main topics is to make it affordable with some pay-as-you-use tools, with digital tools, in order for a customer not to be obliged to pay upfront the full bottle of LPG, but to pay when he’s using the LPG bottle, which is one of the other challenges as well. This is the first initiative we took, 400 million dollars to deploy this LPG’s clean cooking invest into some storages and distribution of LPGs in the continent.

The second initiative we took is that we observed with other large corporations like mine, my European colleagues of BP, Equinor and Shell, we speak about a lot in Africa about micro-grids or home solar. It’s quite difficult. There are plenty of SMEs we try to deploy, and we honestly feel that we are not really progressing well. We decided to put all our efforts together in a new fund, which will be allotted by 500 million dollars, which will be managed by a private equity fund in order to invest and to really have a capacity to really bring more to this development of home solar system, micro-grids, etcetera. It’s not easy, but we think that all what we can do to develop access to energy, to the African population is important. Last part, again, is gas. I know you’ve asked me a question about renewables, but if you want and you need in Africa, electricity, but you want a 24/7 reliable electricity, when you have intermittent sources like solar and wind, of course, you have some hydro. You need to combine it with gas-fired power plants. I know there is a debate, but I’m fully supportive of all of you here. You need to speak up in all the international arenas, including with my European friends, that, yes, it’s true that climate change is fundamental, but gas will allow you to make some progress. It will allow you to develop Africa. It will allow you, in fact, to give economic development, social development, it’s the best way. Gas to power has to be developed in the countries. Again, I was in Mozambique. We have a huge LNG project to develop in Mozambique, but somewhere, of course, very legitimately, the authorities of Mozambique are asking us, “What can you do for domestic gas?” Domestic gas means, in fact, power. Gas to power. I think it’s a good argument. I think with the other countries, and European countries, tell them, “Look, you want us to export our LNG to Europe because you don’t have the Russian gas anymore? We should be allowed to develop our gas also for our own economy.” So, I’m a big advocate, and I think we are aligned with IFC gas to power, transmission, and again, finding a way to guarantee renewable CPAs are the three, I would say, topics on which I think if we want to make this Mission 300, really a reality, we need to work together.

[Linda Mabhena-Olagunju] Thank you, Patrick. I think you really touched on key issues, especially around the turnaround time. Whenever there’s a lack of a government-backed programs. For example, where there isn’t a government-backed or government-guaranteed program like we had in South Africa, when you are pursuing PPAs, it is a very long and arduous road, and that doesn’t build a market. I remember when Hussain, your company started its track in South Africa, your business development lady, Barbo, used to come and knock on doors and say, “I’m from this company, AMEA Power,” and I was really happy to see, finally, you guys won a project. No one talks about how long it takes to actually get to the point of being a successful bidder in these programs, but also the fact that we need to de-risk these projects significantly, whether you’re doing power, whether you’re looking at the infrastructure side, which is your transmission. Could you tell me a bit about your journey as well in terms of what you see as a challenge as an investor in Africa in the power sector, and in particular, the role you feel guarantees play in de-risking these projects for you as an investor?

[Hussain AlNowais] Thanks, Linda. I think my three friends on this panel have covered a lot of the points related to this, but let me share my personal experience. My company, AMEA Power, has been around for eight years. We are today present in 20 different countries in Africa. We believe in Africa. We were an early believer in Africa. We believe in this great continent. We believe in the people of Africa, and therefore, we have committed fully to this continent. We’re in about 6,000 megawatts today in these 20 countries. The challenges we saw are the same challenges raised. The first big challenge is the grid. My brother Makhtar highlighted that. I think it’s about time for the IPP developer to start investing in the grid. My company, AMEA Power, have decided to pursue this route, and we want to discuss it with potential clients in Africa because they are unable to do the grid. We see generation is easy, but you need to evacuate that generation. How can you evacuate if there is no grid or there is poor grid? Some countries, like Morocco, have done a great job by investing in the grid. Egypt have done a great job in investing in the grid, and that has eased the job for developer to start building generation. I think some of my other friends in different countries, I see many great presidents of Africa here, one needs to start opening that grid for the private sector. It will help them, it will create another avenue for generation. The second challenge we see in some countries is the convertibility of the currency. In our principle, we always need to be paid in a currency of convertibility, dollar or euro. Some countries, like South Africa, because you are able to borrow in rand, you hedge your risk on the currency. Morocco, you borrow in dirham because you hedge yourself in currency. Other countries, we cannot. We cannot accept it. It has to be convertible currency, and it has to come with a bankable documentation for the project. That was raised by our friend. The bankability of these documents is important because we all go to the lenders, and the lenders will stake minimum risk and pass the risk on you as a developer. From our experience, we believe the challenge as well is the permitting and dealing with the different local organizations. Therefore, one of the suggestions I’ve made to some of the friends in the government in African countries is to have a one-stop shop where we, as a developer, deal with all the required permits, be it land, be it taxes, be it whatever permits or dealing you need to have with government agencies, a one-stop shop. The investor doesn’t waste time running around. It’s there. You go and deal with all these issues.

We’ve seen this, for example, in Togo, a small country where they have done it remarkably very well. You go to the one-stop shop, all the issues are solved, and you move on. We delivered in Togo, for example, in 14 months, from A to Z, in a challenging time. Why? Because we committed, and because the system allowed us to do so. We also believe, which makes life easy for us in the community we work on, we work on communities, which are normally remote, is to partner with that community. By that, I mean we invest in their needs. We build clinics, we build schools, we hire their young men and women, we train them, we develop them to become part of the team who operates this plant. That community partnership has eased life for us. Some of these countries, the rural areas have a challenge of security, have a challenge of all kinds of challenges. What we did in a particular country, I don’t need to mention, we had challenges there. What we did, we went to the community and offered them all the services they needed to make their life better in their community. It’s part of the cost we took on our shoulder, but it made life so easy and so successful, we were able to finish on time, on some cases ahead of schedule. These are lessons we learned in this journey of developing power in Africa. Obviously, some countries are more advanced than others. Some countries have more capacity than others.

By the way, speaking of capacity, that’s another important thing. Sometimes you sit across the table from a client. That client is not familiar with the rules and the regulations which are needed for investments. We as an investor, we need to have bankable documents, we need to have currency protection, we need to have sovereign guarantee because I need to go to my friend in IFC and say, “Can you lend me money?” Or my friend in AfDB, “Can you lend money on this project?” They will say, “Okay, what are the guarantees you have?” These are very, very important. Otherwise, you don’t have a bankable project. Otherwise, there is no project. Now, my friend in Total is lucky. If there is oil, he has the security of that oil and can do it, but others, we don’t have that privilege. I’m a strong believer in the potential of this continent. I’m a great believer in the people of this continent, but we all need to work to provide coaching for capacity building for the resources on the other side of the table.

[Linda Mabhena-Olagunju] No, thank you. That’s very, very well said. I think just to wrap up from the deliberations from this past two days. As the private sector, we’re being called upon to invest. I think it’s also very important because this is one of the first conferences I’ve attended where you actually have the presidents and the decision-makers sitting and listening to private sector. I think this provides a unique opportunity for us as private sector to say what needs to be done, which you’ve touched on about accelerating the rate at which permits are being given out in order for us to be able to develop these projects faster. Patrick, you’ve also touched on issues around financial guarantees that need to be in place in order for us to be able to lend the money in order to get these projects off the ground. The one thing I think that was not really touched on throughout the two days of the Summit is there was a lot of mention on jobs and that we’re going to create these jobs. To create jobs, you need to have scale. To create scale, you need to have volumes of orders, as we know. If we’re only rolling out a megawatt here, that’s not enough to sustain manufacturing on a sustainable level. If we are really going to be serious about this target of 300 million in the next five years, what are we thinking around building the local manufacturing or assembly capacity on this continent to create those jobs? Because those jobs don’t come from generation alone. I remember Total had an assembly plant in South Africa, which unfortunately didn’t have enough volumes due to our stop and start approach at the time. I think it’s important to be clear to the leaders in this room today that the jobs will not come from generation alone, and we need volumes in order for us to be able to produce the scale that can sustain a manufacturing base. I don’t know if you have any other comments around that as we wrap up on your observations over the last two days.

[Hussain AlNowais] If I can just say one thing on the scale, I totally agree with you, by the way, on the scale. I was having a discussion with one of our friends today from the government in North Africa on the tariff. Now, I cannot provide a low tariff on a 30-megawatt project. You cannot compare a tariff I made for a project of a 1,000 megawatt with that of 30 megawatts. Economy of a scale, and procurement, and construction makes all the difference. Now, the challenge some countries have on allowing an investor like us to build, we’d like to build big projects. I built today in Egypt, I’m building the largest single power project in African continent. It’s 1,000 megawatts in one site. The challenge is that the grid, because these are remote areas, they need to build in that village, and this village, and that area, near this mine, near that industrial zone, but there is no grid; and therefore, you only have 30 or 40 or 50 megawatts, and you connect accordingly.

[Patrick Pouyanné] At the end, and we face the situation. It’s an industry which is dominated largely by one or two countries. All of you at the end, the objective for head of states, Europe, Africa, is the cost of electricity for the customer. Today, you have to be efficient. I think in the solar industry today, almost 90% is produced in China. The question we have is, can we convince the Chinese company to come and to manufacture? For that, we need to have enough. The size is fundamental. We are managing today to develop an alternative to China in India, but we are engaged there, TotalEnergies, in a 30-gigawatt project. So, solar and wind, 500 square kilometers, it’s huge, but it gives, of course, this manufacturing industry a way to take off. The question, as you said, is, do we have enough scale? Honestly, I perfectly understand the very legitimate request, but then at the end with the arbitration between a local manufacturing, which might be more expensive, and the cost of electricity for customers. We are not yet there, I think. There is one country where we think we could have a scale. It’s your country, South Africa. The other one is Egypt. Because these are the two countries, and Morocco, so three countries, I would say, where we’ve seen, and recently we signed an MOU to develop a large, very large farm in Morocco to produce hydrogen or electricity, we’ll see what it is. But the scale is fundamental if you want to reach your objective. To be honest, even Europeans do not manage to make manufacturing. I don’t encourage you to make tariff to get local jobs, be careful. It’s not the solution to the planet and to develop more electricity, in particular in this continent. By the way, I just touched upon one point. I think there is a way for all the countries in North Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, to look to it to Europe, as a green deal, as a huge market for electricity. We will never manage, I can tell you, because of lack of space in Europe. We have a problem of access to land. We will never manage because... And the weather, by the way, it’s more sun in Africa than there. We will never manage to reach the objectives of the green deal without finding a way to develop large and efficient renewable farms in these countries and to link them by subsea cables to Italy, to Spain, to France. It could be a source of revenues for Africa. If really, we are serious there, this is something on which we are working today with different countries. We have engaged a company, something which is a little landing on the moon project, which is called Xilinx, but this is the idea. We need to develop that and this could be a resource. The other comment I would say, don’t forget hydro in Africa. Hydro is not intermittent. You have still a potential. We acquired this last year in ‘24, we are just closing it. All the developers of hydro projects of Scatec, Norwegian company, in Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi. There is Gabon, I could say. There is a good potential, which is maybe easier to access because it’s less intermittent. So, giving a new, more pragmatic solution, but you have a big potential in hydro in the continent.

[Linda Mabhena-Olagunju] Thank you very much. I’ve been told and threatened that our time is up. Go ahead.

[Makhtar Diop] Just I want to come back to what we started with, because I think we have the head of states who are here and who are expecting us to give us some ideas of what they can work on and bring their government to work around. I think that things are happening. For instance, in Mauritania, on the mining side, there are huge investments needed in electricity. We are working with Mauritanian authorities. I want to come back to say that for me, the main bottleneck right now would be transmission and distribution. What Patrick have just said about connecting submarine cable to Europe is transport and transmission. But you can go further because Morocco and North Africa will be connected to Mauritania, will be connected to the Sahel, and also then export the huge capacity of production that existed in renewables. If we don’t address this bottleneck of transport, I think we are missing a big opportunity of growth, a big opportunity to increase access. I think that one of the takeaways here will be, can we have an agreement or commitment that we will be unbundling transmission and accept to have investment from the private sector on transmission? This is a political decision that needs to be [taken]. Secondly, we cannot do M-300 if the utilities are in the current financial situation that we have in a lot of African countries. I spent, personally, a lot of time in my career working on this. I think that if you don’t address the financial sustainability of distribution companies and their governance. The financial situation is often linked to the governance. To address this, your governance, we need to make the capital open to the public. We are talking about capital flight in Africa. I don’t believe that African people want to put their money abroad for the sake of doing it. If they had the opportunity to invest in assets which are tangible, interesting assets where they can make money, the middle class in Africa will invest in shares, in the utility if the utility functions well. There, we’ll be able to take the savings of African people and transfer them in productive sectors. I think there is an agenda, short term, that we can work on address to be able to accelerate what we are doing right now, and on the DRE to be able to do on renewables. Lastly, guarantee is well heard. We are quadrupling the guarantee of the World Bank Group. That’s part of the big reform of the World Bank Group. We are doing 30% of our lending in local currency right now at IFC, and we are aiming at doing much more in the future. I know that the time of the head of state is very precious.