By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), have signed a $500 million deal through the Power Africa Presidential Initiative, which among other things is aimed at eliminating energy poverty by 2030, speeding up the green energy transition in Africa, and improving the favourable climate for renewable energy.
Signing of the deal which took place on the sidelines of the Africa Energy Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, is an extension and expansion of AfDB and USAID’s current Regional Development Objectives Agreement (RDOAG).
Apart from deepening strategic partnership and relations, the action is expected to increase the foundation for collaboration in the development of creative and sustainable solutions to tackle endemic energy shortage, climate change, and enhance energy systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
The five-year extension, which runs through September 2028, creates opportunity for the contributions of the United States in offering support to RDOAG’s goals.
The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) and the African Development Bank’s Desert to Power program have both received direct funding through the RDOAG, totaling around $388 million.
The partnership will also be able to help the public, commercial, civil society, and other stakeholders financially, technically, and operationally through grants, equity and debt investments, and risk-reduction strategies, Business Insider Africa reports.
Acting Coordinator for Power Africa, David Thompson, emphasized the importance of partnerships in advancing and sustaining the fair energy transition during the signing ceremony at the Africa Energy Forum.
“The importance of our partnership with the AfDB, as evidenced through this agreement, in achieving our shared ambition of universal access to energy cannot be overemphasized. We effectively leverage one another’s strengths to accomplish much more jointly than either institution could do on its own,” he said.
The Power Africa Strategic Framework, the Bank Group’s New Deal on Energy for Africa, and Sustainable Development Goal 7 are all concerned with ensuring that everyone has access to cheap, dependable, sustainable, and modern energy. Activities carried out under the enlarged agreement will support these goals.
Partnerships are crucial, as Dr. Daniel Schroth, Director of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the African Development Bank, who signed the extension on behalf of the Bank’s Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate, and Green Growth, emphasized.
According to Schroth, “Power Africa is a long-standing and key partner of the African Development Bank, and a central pillar of our collaboration focuses on mobilizing increased private sector investments, which are quintessential to achieving our joint objectives of universal access to energy and a just energy transition in Africa.”
