At the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in April, World Bank President Ajay Banga announced Mission 300 – a joint commitment with the African Development Bank (AfDB) to provide energy access to 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030 – describing electricity access as a “human right” (see Observer Summer 2024).

While the Bank’s commitment to expanding energy access is encouraging (see Observer Winter 2017), its emphasis on governments putting “in place policies to attract private investment” raises concerns (see Observer Summer 2023). The Bank and AfDB are working with 15 Sub-Saharan African countries to develop ‘energy compacts’ – agreements to implement reforms aimed at restructuring power sectors to attract private producers. These compacts will be presented at the Africa Heads-of-State Energy Summit in Tanzania in January, alongside an Africa-wide energy compact. In addition, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet and the Rockefeller Foundation – among the partners in Mission 300 – also committed $10 million to establish a technical assistance facility to support implementation of the reforms.

However, with civil society organisations (CSOs) still absent from the table, Dean Bhebhe of Kenya-based CSO PowerShift Africa and Rajneesh Bhuee of international CSO Recourse warned in South Africa-based publication Mail & Guardian in November that, “without the active participation of communities directly affected by energy policies, Mission 300 risks failing to secure the buy-in of the people.”

Without the active participation of communities directly affected by energy policies, Mission 300 risks failing to secure the buy-in of the people.Dean Bhebhe, PowerShift Africa and Rajneesh Bhuee, Recourse

Mission 300 draws from the Bank’s broader mission of turning billions of public finance into trillions by mobilising private capital, despite mounting evidence that the promised ‘trillions’ for development are still missing (see Observer Summer 2023). Alongside AfDB commitments, the Bank plans to channel $30 billion from the International Development Association (IDA), its low-income country arm, to help de-risk private investments and attract $90 billion for electrification, focusing on grid extensions and off-grid solar projects.

A failed recipe repackaged

In Mission 300, the Bank is doubling down on energy privatisation by amplifying de-risking measures and regulatory reforms, with projects like Nigeria’s ‘Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-Up Project’ marking the Bank’s first private-sector-led attempt at distributed renewable energy generation. However, there is no mention of the trade-offs of relying on private finance, even though the Bank’s own research reveals a mixed record of success, at best (see Report, Gambling with the Planet’s Future).

At a Mission 300 event during the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in October, the Bank praised Rwanda for quadrupling its energy supply through privatisation, but the hefty cost to its government was left unmentioned. As part of a World Bank reform package, Rwanda signed over 20 long-term take-or-pay power purchase agreements to attract private investment in 2010, which drained public resources and raised tariffs – making electricity unaffordable for many. As a donor official noted in a 2020 paper by Benjamin Chemouni and Barnaby Dye, these costly agreements left the government “digging a fiscal hole.”

Combined with the high capital costs and risk profiles in Sub-Saharan Africa, the private sector de-risking approach places a significant burden on already indebted governments. The Trade Unions for Energy Democracy argued in an August 2023 report that, “The current neoliberal emphasis is on ‘de-risking’ private investment, whereby public money makes profitable what would not otherwise be profitable. This means that ‘more public investment’ will simply perpetuate the same failed approach, while securing more profit for the private sector. It will not bring about the kind of changes in the energy system that decarbonization will require, and may even make matters worse” (see Observer Autumn 2023).