Board of Directors of World Bank has permitted a total of $300 million in International Development Association (IDA) credits and grants to support reforms that will help promote electricity trade in West Africa.
World Bank Vice-President for Western and Central Africa, Ousmane Diagana, stated, “West Africa has huge potential for clean and green energy generation, which countries can unlock and pool together to bring lower cost electricity to communities and help create jobs”.
The $300 million is to help Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, and Sierra Leone implement sector reforms toward achieving the potential of the regional power market.
The West Africa Regional Energy Trade Development Policy Financing Program (West Africa Energy DPF) pursues to eliminate obstacles to electricity trade, which will lessen electricity costs for consumers, support the competitiveness of companies and increase resilience and reliability of supply.
Over the past period, member countries of the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) have been working through the West Africa Power Pool (WAPP) — towards a fully integrated power market. Within a few years, they will have completed the main interconnectors that will link them together. The West Africa Energy DPF chains a policy reform program being applied by Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone, to enable trade in cleaner low cost electricity generated from gas, hydropower and renewable energy across borders. This will switch the more expensive electricity generated from inefficient small-scale oil-fired and diesel generation and improve the reliability of electricity services.
