twitter Facebook Linkedin acp Contact Us

AfDB extends support to Power Africa

AfDB president Donald Kaberuka. (Image source: World Trade Organization/Flickr)

US President Barack Obama’s Power Africa initiative is steadily garnering support from investors and financial institutions within Africa

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has promised funds for aiding the project soon after Tony Elumelu’s Heirs Holdings committed US$2.5bn towards boosting the power scenario in Africa.  

The AfDB, a major investor in the energy sector already, will scale up funding for energy production, transmission and distribution infrastructure and cross-border power pools as well as government policy and regulatory reforms.

AfDB president Donald Kaberuka said in Dar es Salaam, “We expect to allocate as much as US$3bn in the next five years... this will leverage at least four times more investments in the energy sector.”

Kaberuka noted that the bank’s interventions will include investment loans, reforms, advisory and guarantees. “Reforming the power sector is the key. The billions of dollars available for investment in the energy sector will translate into actual bulbs in people’s homes if state utilities run efficiently and effectively,” he added.

The main financial source for the bank’s assistance to the energy sector in the power initiative is the African Development Fund (ADF) and AfDB’s concessional window.

Kaberuka welcomed the Power Africa initiative saying, “Power Africa is a timely initiative and the bank will work with the six countries for a successful implementation.”

 

READ MORE

Heirs Holdings commits funds for African power sector

US reaches out to solve African power crisis