The Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa is expanding its activities to the Democratic Republic of the Congo

To further support the scale-up of energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa (BGFA) is launching a new country program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with financing from Sweden. It is the sixth country to join the BGFA program.

Energy poverty is widespread in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the second-largest country in Africa, especially in rural areas. Whilst some 40% of the urban population has access to electricity, in rural areas this number is only some 10%, according to a report published by Power Africa in 2019. In terms of the number of households that have access to electricity, it is less than 20%. With a widely dispersed population and a national grid that does not reach the majority of the population, there is enormous potential for off-grid solutions for both solar home systems and mini-grids.

Sweden, through the Embassy in Kinshasa, will support the expansion of BGFA to the Democratic Republic of the Congo with SEK 200 million (~ EUR 20 million). The overall aim of the new country program is to create access to affordable renewable energy solutions for people living in rural and peri-urban areas in the country. In addition, Sweden hopes that the support from BGFA will build up a sustainable energy system, increase productivity and opportunities for small businesses, and support resilience towards climate change.

“The Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the world’s lowest rates of access to electricity. The off-grid solutions financed through the Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa will form an integral part of Sweden’s support to the efforts to give isolated and highly inaccessible areas and economically weak groups access to electricity. In my exchanges with provincial and local authorities and with the Congolese people when I travel around the country, access to electricity is often raised as a priority, both for recurrent, daily activities but also increased employment opportunities. Through Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa, Sweden wants to contribute to reduced poverty and durable development while accompanying the country in building up durable energy system with a small climate impact” says Henric Råsbrant, Sweden’s Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

BGFA will provide financial incentives to private companies that will offer high-quality and sustainable energy services and products under inclusive market conditions to rural and peri-urban people in energy-poor regions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to accelerate private sector provision of clean energy. In line with the other BGFA countries, the country program will also provide project implementation support to selected energy service providers, monitor the delivery of outcomes, and seek to provide local institutional capacity building by engaging key stakeholders in the country.

“We are very pleased to announce further expansion of the BGFA program in cooperation with Sweden, doubling the size of the program since its launch in 2019. By incentivizing the private sector to scale off-grid energy solutions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we will support the establishment of thousands of new off-grid connections, benefiting the rural population in this vast and underserved country,” comments Ash Sharma, Vice President of Nefco and Head of Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa.

As a first phase in the Democratic the Republic of the Congo, market scoping will be carried out during spring 2022. It is expected that a Call for Proposals-based funding round will open in the third quarter of the year, inviting private sector companies, i.e., energy service providers active in the off-grid sector, to apply for a two-staged funding round.