The Rockefeller Foundation has announced an additional commitment totaling $15.9 million in support of the goals of the African Development Bank Group and World Bank Group to provide electricity access to 300 million Africans by 2030.

Announced during the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit, the funding builds upon an initial $10 million investment from the foundation and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet to the RF Catalytic Capital (RFCC) Mission 300 Accelerator. The investment includes $10 million to Zafiri, the World Bank Group’s recently established distributed renewable energy (DRE) investment company, which will provide patient equity to scale Africa’s private sector-led DRE sector.

Additional investments include up to $2.5 million from RFCC to ODI Global Washington for a new fellowship program that aims to help African governments meet their Mission 300 commitments by embedding early career professionals into government energy ministries and offices; and $3.4 million to Sustainable Energy for All to monitor progress, implement programs across the continent, and develop new local currency financing tools.

“Access to electricity will determine the quality of Africa’s future and, because of its growing youth population, the world’s,” said Rockefeller Foundation president Rajiv J. Shah. “By connecting 300 million Africans to electricity for the first time, Mission 300 will make all our futures more prosperous and secure. The Rockefeller Foundation is doing everything we can to accelerate Mission 300 because we know changing energy changes lives.”

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