By Patricia Mbogo, Executive Director, ACCESS Coalition

At the 2025 African Development Bank Annual Meetings held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, the Bank reaffirmed its ambition to tackle one of Africa’s most pressing development challenges: energy poverty. With the theme “Leveraging Africa’s Capital to Drive Development,” this year’s meetings signaled a critical moment-not just for the Bank’s leadership transition-but for redefining Africa’s energy future.

We at the ACCESS Coalition welcome the renewed commitments by the Bank, particularly the announcement of a joint initiative with the World Bank to connect 300 million people to electricity by 2030. The Bank’s pledge to provide 50 million of those connections is a strong statement of intent. We also applaud the Bank’s $200 million annual investment in clean cooking-an essential, yet long-neglected, component of the continent’s energy transition.

Yet while these commitments are significant, they must be matched by bold, people-centered action. Africa is facing a deepening energy crisis. According to the 2024 SDG 7 Tracker, over 600 million people across the continent still lack access to electricity-80% of whom are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Even more concerning, nearly one billion people continue to cook with polluting fuels, with only 7% of rural households having transitioned to clean cooking.

This is not just a crisis of infrastructure-it is a crisis of equity, health, and development. If we continue on our current path, 1.8 billion people will still be using polluting fuels by 2030, and 60% of them will be in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Bank’s strategic direction through initiatives like Light Up and Power Africa, Mission 300, and the Desert to Power program shows promise. But progress demands a transformation in how energy investments are planned, financed, and delivered. It’s time to center Africa’s poorest and most marginalized communities-the “last mile”-in all energy access efforts.

As a global network of over 100 civil society organizations advocating for a socially just energy transition, ACCESS Coalition urges the Bank, African governments, development partners, and investors to take five priority actions:

  • Scale up dedicated finance for electricity and clean cooking access, especially targeting high-deficit countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Align financing models with the realities of poor communities, including robust investment in decentralized renewable energy and energy safety nets to ensure affordability.
  • Elevate electric cooking (e-cooking) as a central pillar of the transition, linking it with infrastructure, targeted subsidies, public awareness, and private sector partnerships.
  • Adopt integrated energy service planning, connecting energy to sectors like health, education, agriculture, and finance to maximize development outcomes.
  • Ensure transparent monitoring and reporting of energy investments under Light Up and Power Africa and Mission 300. Institutionalize civil society participation in design, implementation, and oversight at both national and regional levels.

ACCESS, in partnership with Vasudha Foundation and the STEER Centre at Loughborough University, is developing an Africa Energy Finance Tracker to strengthen public accountability and data access on the Bank’s energy financing.

As President Adesina prepares to pass the baton, we urge the incoming leadership to champion this transformative agenda. The time for action is now. A socially just energy transition is not only possible—it is essential to Africa’s development, resilience, and future prosperity.