This is an exciting time for Zambia’s electricity sector. Roughly one year ago, the Government of Zambia announced plans to develop a National Electrification Program as an integrated approach to electrification that will help the country achieve its Vision 2030 electrification targets.

Advancing rural and urban access 

Vision 2030 seeks to increase the rural electricity access rate from the current 4.5 percent to 51 percent by 2030. In urban areas, the target access rate by 2030 is 90 percent compared to the current 67 percent. These are ambitious plans given Zambia’s rapidly growing population and a population density among the lowest in southern Africa.

Hydro currently provides 85 percent of Zambia’s electricity capacity, mostly through large-scale, grid-connected generation. But such reliance on large hydro and grid connections can’t continue if we are going to bring electricity to millions of people living in hard-to-reach rural communities.

Government and industry know this, which is why Vision 2030 envisions the contribution of renewables and alternative energy sources moving from 2 percent to 15 percent of the country’s electricity mix. How can this be realized?

Enter the National Electrification Program. It is a comprehensive roadmap for the electricity sector’s overall development. Through close consultation with all system stakeholders—consumers, development partners, local governments, regulators and energy enterprises, among others—we are defining what needs to happen for us to succeed in meeting Vision 2030 and pushing for even greater ambition with an eye towards Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) calling for universal clean energy access.

Marking opportunities

Based on stakeholder input and least-cost electrification planning using geo-spatial analysis, we are segmenting the country into areas best served by different services or technologies. Some areas will be identified as suitable for grid expansion or densification while others will be best served by mini-grid or off-grid solutions.

The output from this process is a rollout plan and bankable prospectus that identifies essential investments for public, private, and cooperating partner financing of electrification projects. Our new institutional framework will help de-risk investments. For example, it will ensure those wanting to develop off-grid or mini-grid projects in remote areas don’t have to worry about future grid expansion to these project areas.

A pillar for development

The National Electrification Program is still being developed and is part of a promising trend of Integrated Electrification Pathways emerging in countries across Africa. The support this program has received from the highest levels of government is an indication of how big a priority electricity access has become.

Tellingly, the National Electrification Program is seen as a pillar for achieving the broader development goals of Vision 2030, helping Zambia become a “strong and dynamic middle-income industrial nation that provides opportunities for improving the well-being of all, embodying values of socio economic justice.” (Government of Zambia) and the SDGs.

*Vidéo en français ci-dessous

In 2019, SEforALL published Integrated Electrification Pathways for Universal Access to Electrification: A Primer as a practical guide for facilitating government and private sector efforts to develop national electrification plans taking a full-systems approach.

An integrated, full-systems approach to electrification planning will be essential for achieving universal electricity access, a target defined by Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7). But what does this integrated approach look like in practice?

This video explains the principles of Integrated Electrification Pathways and demonstrates how countries like Togo, Ethiopia and Nepal are harnessing them to advance electrification goals.

In a series of stories, Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) is profiling five entrepreneurs in Africa who recently received the inaugural “Energy Access Booster” awards, which honors those who are implementing energy access projects, including green mini-grids, sustainable mobility, refrigeration and energy for agriculture and drinking water. The awards are in support of Sustainable Development Goal 7 to provide reliable, affordable and clean energy for all by 2030.

Taita-Taveta County is nestled against Mount Kilimanjaro and the Tanzanian border in southern Kenya. This is where Didas Mzirai grew up. It is where he spent his school holidays picking and packaging mangoes to support himself.  And it is now home to Mzirai’s burgeoning social enterprise, Mucho Mangoes.

“The idea for Mucho Mangoes started when I was very young,” Mzirai explains. “While I was working in the mango fields, I saw just how much rural smallholder farmers were being exploited by the large exporters and middlemen companies, and I grew up thinking that one day I would come up with a solution.”

Even as a boy, Mzirai identified a lack of empowerment among local farmers. With limited local demand for mangoes and bananas, most of their harvest would be sold to large exporters. These commercial buyers were able to dictate the prices offered to farmers and only purchased fruits that fit the expectations of Western supermarkets.

Meanwhile, the farmers lacked the expertise and resources for improving both the quantity and quality of their yields. 

In early 2015, Mzirai set out to change this reality. He attended an accelerator for young African entrepreneurs called Spark, now part of YGAP, where he received a $160 investment from the accelerator and encouragement from Aaron Tait, the Chief Impact Officer at YGAP, who advised him to follow his childhood passion. Combining this support and his small personal savings, he started Mucho Mangoes.

“Our goal is to create a local market for mangoes and bananas that is devoid of middlemen and exploitation,” Mzirai says.

Mzirai and his team of 6 employees now support over 500 mango farmers in Taita-Taveta County by providing them with training in pest management and horticultural techniques designed to help reduce their production costs. This training relies on a mobile resource hub that Mucho Mangoes established in partnership with the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC).

These farmers typically lack reliable electricity on their farms, let-alone an Internet connection, to be able to access farming information or market their products online. Mzirai explains that the solar-powered resource hub fills this access gap for the farmers.

Mucho Mangoes also buys products from the same farmers they train, negotiating fair prices and purchasing fruits that large exporters reject simply for aesthetic reasons. This fruit is then dehydrated for various uses using the company’s solar-powered dryer.

Mucho Mangoes has been able to create a local market for upgrading fruits and reducing food waste by turning to off-grid solar technology. On top of intermittency, Mzirai says that electricity from the local grid is very expensive, which was why he wanted his company’s fruit dryers to be solar-powered.

The business model he has created underlines the significance that a reliable energy supply can have for creating new economic opportunities in last-mile communities like Taita-Taveta.

Having already empowered hundreds of farmers either through training or purchasing, Mzirai says the focus for Mucho Mangoes going forward is to expand its impact model to an even broader group. His goal is to eventually support all mango producing regions in Kenya by establishing a network of localized solar-drying and training facilities; then his sights will shift to replicating this in other Eastern African countries, including Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.

In a first step towards this expansion, last fall Mzirai applied for an Energy Access Booster award, a program established by Total, ENEA Consulting, SEforALL and Acumen to support entrepreneurs in the field of energy access in Africa. Recognizing the impact of Mucho Mangoes work, this group awarded the company $28,800 along with strategic advisory services to help Mzirai meet his expansion goals. 

“The Energy Access Booster has been a blessing for us,” Mzirai exclaims. “We are using the money from the award to procure a bigger capacity solar dryer that will let us double our purchasing from farmers.”

Top photo credit: Mucho Mangoes

How can a country take its electrification rate from 18% in 2005 to 100% by 2030? Togo is demonstrating that the presence of high-level political commitment plays a critical role.

The west African country has brought its electrification rate from 18% to 45% in the past 13 years thanks, in part, to presidential support for an integrated electrification strategy.

The appointment of a special advisor to Togo’s president responsible for coordinating government efforts across ministries in support of electrification, and the launch of an initiative to bring electricity to 5,000 remote villages, are just a couple outcomes of the national strategy.

This video is one of three country case studies (Ethiopia, Nepal and Togo) focusing on Integrated Electrification Pathways. Want to learn more about the importance of integrated approaches to electrification? Read our primer report.

In a country of approximately 100 million people, roughly 44% of Ethiopians have access to electricity.

Ethiopia’s National Electrification Program 2.0 aims to fill this electricity access gap: by ensuring 100% access by 2025.

To reach this ambitious target, the government is engaging in an array of innovative partnerships with development organizations and the private sector, helping make sure that no one is left behind in the push for universal access to electricity.

This video is one of three country case studies (Ethiopia, Nepal and Togo) focusing on Integrated Electrification Pathways. Want to learn more about the importance of integrated approaches to electrification? Read our primer report.