The Energy Record
Energy Sector Analysis · April 2026 · mdbreform.com
$21.5 Billion Committed to Energy in Africa. 85% of Committed Resources Below Satisfactory.
Mission 300. Mission Impossible. — What Mission 300 Promises. What the IEG Record Shows.
Parminder Brar · Former World Bank Country Manager and Lead Governance Specialist · mdbreform.com · April 2026
↓ Download the Full Paper (PDF)
| 15% S+ by commitment — 15 cents on the dollar |
$18.3bn Below Satisfactory in a decade |
$9.9bn South Africa: zero Satisfactory |
85% Committed resources below standard |
The World Bank has committed $21.5 billion to 99 IEG-rated Energy and Extractives projects in Sub-Saharan Africa between FY2015 and FY2026. Of this, $18.3 billion — 85 percent — went to projects that did not achieve Satisfactory development outcomes. By project count, 36 of 99 achieved Satisfactory — 36.4 percent. By commitment, the rate collapses to 14.7 percent because the largest energy projects fail. The global Energy rate is 40.5 percent by count. South Asia achieves only 16.7 percent — energy is a weak sector globally, not just in Africa.
The Eskom Question
The commitment-weighted collapse is driven by a single project: the Eskom Investment Support Project in South Africa ($9.125 billion, Moderately Unsatisfactory). This is the largest single project in the entire IEG Africa database — dwarfing the next largest by a factor of eight. South Africa’s three energy projects — $9.9 billion combined — returned zero Satisfactory. Excluding South Africa, the remaining portfolio is $11.6 billion with a commitment-weighted S+ of approximately 27 percent — still weak. The paper presents both figures. Both tell the same story: the Bank’s largest energy bets fail.
Seven Countries, Zero Satisfactory
South Africa ($9.9 billion, 3 projects), Kenya ($1.4 billion, 3 projects including the $1.13 billion Electricity Expansion rated MS), Nigeria ($700 million, 3 projects), DRC ($339 million, 4 projects), Niger ($115 million), Sierra Leone ($80 million, 4 projects), Central African Republic ($73 million). Combined: 21 projects, $12.6 billion, zero Satisfactory. These are the countries where Mission 300 is supposed to deliver.
Mission 300 and the Nigeria Question
Mission 300 promises 300 million new electricity connections by 2030. The initiative does not reference the IEG record documented in this paper. In Nigeria, the World Bank Group simultaneously served as policy adviser, IFC equity investor, and MIGA/IBRD guarantor in the same power sector — a $900 million financial exposure that left the sector with a $1 billion financial deficit and take-or-pay contracts that force Nigeria to pay for power it cannot use while 2,638 MW of near-zero-cost hydropower is curtailed. The Bank turned from policy adviser to debt collector. Mission 300 cannot succeed on a foundation of 15 cents on the dollar.
The Structural Finding
Large-scale generation and transmission projects fail because they depend on institutional capacity — utility governance, tariff reform, grid management, procurement — that the Bank’s project model cannot build. Small, bounded projects (solar mini-grids, rural electrification, specific renewable installations) succeed. The Bank’s strategy scales up the large ones. DPF in energy is an unusual bright spot — 4 projects, 75 percent Satisfactory — but at $555 million it is a fraction of the portfolio. IPF dominates at 95 projects and $21 billion, returning only 13 percent Satisfactory by commitment.
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