The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a US$20 million International Development Association (IDA) grant to help generate investment in large-scale sustainable energy projects in Southern Africa.

The money will finance the preparation of regional energy projects under the 12-country Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) and help leverage the investment needed to support transformational projects that generate large amounts of electricity and transmit it across Southern Africa.

In Southern Africa – excluding South Africa – it is estimated that only 17% of the population has access to electricity. For countries in the sub region, expanding electricity access is a critical part of poverty reduction efforts.

Expanding access requires a major increase in power supply to the region. Southern African countries have significant resources for generating power but to develop these sources of energy requires specialised technical expertise to prepare projects so that they are able to raise the significant investments required from the private sector.

“Across Southern Africa, insufficient and unreliable electricity is a huge barrier to attracting investments, expanding exports, and creating jobs,” said Colin Bruce, the World Bank’s Regional Integration Director for Africa. “Today’s support will help strengthen the capacity of Southern African countries to prepare and mobilize funding for priority regional projects.”

The program will fund feasibility studies and assessments with an aim to attracting investors, who often require high quality information and legal agreements. It will also provide support for brokering and finalising cross-border political, technical and commercial agreements in order to attract sufficient private sector financing.

In addition, analytical support to improve regional decision making and planning capacity will be included. As part of the program a Projects Acceleration Team will be established in the SAPP program. This team will include highly skilled professionals who will support the preparation of key projects.

“Most existing project preparation facilities are relatively small in size and highly fragmented,” said Mustafa Zakir Hussain, the World Bank’s Task Team Leader for the project. “This project will create a regional platform under SADC and SAPP to mobilize regional expertise and the significant additional financial support required for advancing large transformational energy projects.”