Before dawn in the narrow alleys of Mathare, an informal settlement in Kenya's capital, Agnes Mbesa flicks on a single bulb hanging from her tin roof. For years, the mother of three relied on smoky kerosene lamps. Now electricity lights her home and powers the small shop she runs from her veranda. “Before the power came, we closed early because it was too dark,” Mbesa said. “Now people come even at night, and I can earn something.”
Hundreds of kilometres from Nairobi in Sori, western Kenya, fisherman Samuel Oketch tells a similar story. After a solar mini-grid reached his village, he bought a freezer to store his catch. Fish that once had to be sold quickly at low prices can now be preserved and transported to nearby towns. “These small changes mean a lot,” Oketch said. “Electricity gives us options. My wife can now sell without being taken advantage of by brokers who had the freezers.”
Their experiences highlight how expanded energy access can transform lives. More than 730 million people worldwide still lack access to electricity, about 600 million of them in Africa. New financing aims to accelerate progress. The European Investment Bank pledged more than $1.15 billion in March for renewable energy projects across sub-Saharan Africa, including hydropower, solar, wind and grid expansion. “This funding is Europe’s commitment to provide cleaner, more affordable, and reliable energy for hundreds of millions of people in Africa,” said European Investment Bank President Nadia Calviño.
The Rockefeller Foundation also announced in March at the Africa Energy Indaba in Cape Town that it will invest an additional $10 million to support electrification programmes in at least 15 African countries. The funding will be deployed with the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet to strengthen national programmes and support government reforms. “African governments are choosing to transform their energy sectors by committing to national energy compacts and investing in African-led solutions,” said William Asiko, senior vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation.
The investments support the Mission 300 initiative led by the World Bank and the African Development Bank, which aims to connect 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa to electricity by 2030 through grid expansion and decentralised solutions such as mini-grids and off-grid solar. Across much of Africa, where national electricity grids are often unreliable, mini-grids have emerged as a key alternative. Kenya has received funding since 2017 from the World Bank, African Development Bank and partners under Mission 300 to support its Last Mile Connectivity programme, which targets households near existing transformers, particularly in rural areas and informal settlements, as it pushes toward universal electricity access by 2030.
