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Publication - Lessons learned and future recommendations for incentivising mini-grid projects to scale up energy access in Africa
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Despite collective commitments of over EUR 250 million to mini-grid project development in Africa and ambitious goals to catalyse private investment, current results-based financing approaches are failing to deliver results at scale and speed up implementation to achieve universal energy access by 2030.
Mini-grids are seen as one of the most cost-effective and scalable energy solutions to provide electricity for some 380 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. Yet, as of early 2025, only 14% of the $9.1 billion in financing committed to mini-grid electrification across Africa had been disbursed due to various market challenges. Unelectrified communities should not be left alone for another decade while market actors continue learning by doing. They require the energy access actors to rapidly apply existing knowledge while continuing to innovate and adapt.
To help attract the necessary investment, results-based financing (RBF) programmes offer subsidies tied to specific project milestones and, when properly developed and strategically deployed, can play a crucial role in this urgent mission. Since 2013, at least 13 programmes supporting the acceleration of mini-grid instalments have launched across Africa, including the Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa programme (BGFA), and the effectiveness of these programmes have been examined as part of this new study.
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