In April 2024, at the World Bank Group–International Monetary Fund annual meeting held in Washington, D.C., Group presidents and the African Development Bank (AfDB) launched Providing Access to Electricity for 300 Million People in Africa by 2030.
ITUC-Africa, IndustriAll and PSI’s energy sector affiliates in Africa are deeply concerned that Mission 300 marks a continuation of the neoliberal approach to electrification. The policies proposed under Mission 300 are almost identical to the AfDB’s New Deal on Energy for Africa initiative, that was launched a decade ago. The New Deal pledged to mobilise private investment to achieve 100% access in urban areas and 95% access in rural areas by 2025. With 50% of sub-Saharan Africans still without electricity at the beginning of 2026 – or roughly 600 million people – the New Deal was a spectacular failure1.