The Rockefeller Foundation has committed $10 million in new funding to support Mission 300, a major electrification effort led by the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank.
Mission 300 aims to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030, addressing one of the continent’s most persistent development barriers.
The funding announcement was made during Mission 300 Day at the Africa Energy Indaba 2026 in Cape Town.
With the additional capital, the Rockefeller Foundation will work with the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet to support electrification programs across at least 15 African countries. The focus is practical: strengthen the teams responsible for turning national electrification plans into working projects.
These teams, known as Compact Delivery and Monitoring Units, oversee the rollout of National Energy Compacts, government frameworks designed to expand electricity access while reforming power markets.
Work has already started in Malawi and Liberia. Additional technical support is reaching teams in Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Senegal through funding linked to the Rockefeller Foundation’s public charity, RF Catalytic Capital.
The scale of the electricity gap explains the urgency. Globally, about 730 million people live without power, according to development data. Roughly 600 million of them are in Africa.
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Research from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative shows a strong relationship between lack of electricity and extreme poverty. Without reliable power, hospitals struggle to function, schools lose learning hours, and businesses remain small.
Mission 300 attempts to address this from two directions: expanding national power grids and supporting decentralized renewable energy systems. Since its launch, the program has already helped connect about 44 million people to electricity across sub-Saharan Africa.
National Energy Compacts, introduced during the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit 2025 in Dar es Salaam, are now being adopted by several governments. The compacts combine policy reform with investment plans meant to unlock large-scale electrification.
Beyond funding, Mission 300 also focuses on institutional capacity. The Mission 300 Accelerator, run through RF Catalytic Capital, is expanding technical fellowships that place specialists inside national energy programs.
The first group of fellows is already working across countries including Burundi, Chad, Mozambique, Niger, Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.
The goal is simple but demanding: move electrification plans from policy documents to functioning power connections. For Africa, the outcome will determine how quickly industries grow, services expand, and communities gain access to reliable energy.
By Thuita Gatero, Managing Editor, Africa Digest News. He specializes in conversations around data centers, AI, cloud infrastructure, and energy.
