Nigeria secured $242.9 million in new international financing for its flagship off-grid solar program last week, a cash injection that accelerates one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most ambitious rural electrification drives as the country battles an electricity deficit that has shackled economic growth for decades.
The World Bank disclosed the funding package in a June 10 implementation report, confirming that negotiations over the additional financing for the Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up project, known as DARES, concluded with the Federal Government of Nigeria on June 4.
Japan’s state development lender, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, will contribute ¥29.969 billion, roughly $193.8 million, in joint and parallel co-financing. The United States will separately channel $49.1 million in grant money through the Department of Justice via a standalone trust fund, earmarked exclusively for wiring public institutions.
The fresh commitments land as DARES hits an operational stride. More than $430 million of total program funds are now fully committed, and the project has extended electricity services, new or upgraded, to 5.3 million Nigerians, the Bank said.
That figure remains a fraction of the 16.2 million target set for the project’s December 2028 close, but it represents a near-50 percent jump from the 3.6 million reported just months earlier, driven largely by a surge in stand-alone solar home system deployments under the program’s second component.
