Rockefeller Foundation commits $10 million to advance Africa’s Mission 300 electrification program

The Rockefeller Foundation announced an additional $10 million in funding to support the Mission 300 Electrification Program, a joint effort between the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank that aims to connect 300 million people in Africa to electricity by 2030.

The announcement was made during Mission 300 Day at African Energy Indaba 2026 in Cape Town, South Africa.

With new funding, the Rockefeller Foundation will work with the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet to accelerate electrification projects in at least 15 African countries. This initiative will provide technical support to the Compact Delivery and Monitoring Unit (CDMU), which is responsible for implementing the National Energy Compact.

Relief efforts have already begun in Malawi and Liberia. Additionally, support is being extended to CDMUs in Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Senegal through previously announced funding with RF Catalytic Capital, a public philanthropic arm of the Rockefeller Foundation.

According to William Ashiko, senior vice president and head of Africa at the Rockefeller Foundation, African governments are increasingly working to transform the energy sector through national energy agreements. These initiatives aim to expand access to electricity, stimulate economic growth, and support essential services such as health care, education, and agriculture.

Currently, more than 730 million people around the world lack access to electricity, including approximately 600 million people in Africa, making energy poverty one of the continent’s major development challenges. Research from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative identifies lack of electricity access as one of the strongest predictors of extreme poverty.

Mission 300 was launched by the World Bank and the African Development Bank to address this challenge by expanding electricity access across sub-Saharan Africa through a combination of grid expansion and distributed renewable energy solutions. This initiative has already connected approximately 44 million people to electricity.

Several African countries have adopted these frameworks since the first National Energy Compact was introduced during the 2025 Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The agreement focuses on policy reforms and investments designed to enable large-scale electrification while fostering long-term economic transformation.

Additionally, the Rockefeller Foundation confirmed that the Mission 300 Accelerator supports CDMUs in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Senegal through technical assistance funding.

Andrew Herscowitz, CEO of RF Catalytic Capital’s Mission 300 Accelerator, said expanding electricity access remains essential to economic development and improved livelihoods across sub-Saharan Africa.

Meanwhile, Carol Koech, Vice President for Africa at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, stressed that achieving the goals of Mission 300 requires strong institutional coordination and an effective implementation framework.

During Mission 300 Day at the Africa Energy Indaba, the Rockefeller Foundation also announced an expansion of technical assistance fellowships for CDMU in partnership with CoAction Global, a nonprofit impact accelerator. These fellowships will support electrification efforts across at least 18 countries in Africa.

The first group of Mission 300 Fellows has already provided technical assistance in countries such as Burundi, Chad, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Republic of Congo, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.

This initiative is expected to play a key role in accelerating electrification efforts and expanding access to reliable electricity across the African continent.

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