AfDB approves $5.5m grant for Desert to Power energy project

The African Development Bank's (AfDB) concessional African Development Fund (ADF) has authorized a $5.5 million technical assistance grant to kick-start the flagship Desert to Power initiative in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan.

The East Africa Regional Energy Project, approved in July 2021, is funded under the ADF-15 Regional Public Good window. The project will develop technical studies for regional solar parks, battery storage and electrical connection systems of neighbourhood countries. The initiative would strengthen the technical capabilities of the project's implementing organization, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a trade bloc composed of states from the Horn of Africa, the Nile Valley, and the Great Lakes region.

Desert to Power, the AfDB's flagship renewable energy and economic development initiative, aims to accelerate socio-economic development in the Sahel region's 11 countries, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan, through the large-scale deployment of solar technologies. By diversifying the energy mix and guaranteeing energy security, this project will help alleviate the negative repercussions of climate change. By 2030, Desert to Power will have added ten gigawatts of solar capacity and will be able to provide electricity to more than 250 million people in eleven Sahelian countries. This is consistent with one of the African Development Bank's High Five strategic initiatives, "lighting up and powering Africa."