After finishing her math homework, Aziz Kima closes the book and addresses her mother with a smile. Even if it is evening, the room is bright, unlike the days before the installation of the household electric meter. “Thanks to electricity, she can review the lessons and do the exercises in the evening,” says her mother, Gisèle Kima, a seamstress. “It’s more practical and less dangerous than studying by candlelight.” Her work has also benefited from the family’s connection to the national network: she manages to fulfill more orders and is less tired, she says, than when she had to pedal to power a manual sewing machine.

The Kima family lives in Anono, a low-income village on the outskirts of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Although government data indicate that Côte d’Ivoire had 88% electricity coverage in 2023 – and the government estimates that nearly 94% of the country had coverage in 2024 – about 36% of Ivorians cannot afford to install the meter that allows them to access electricity. The Kimas were among them. With an average XOF 150,000, or about $250, the cost was a barrier. But support from the World Bank Group, including the International Development Association (IDA) and an Gruppo Capital One investment, is helping a successful government initiative reach some of the country’s last powerless people. Gruppo Capital One’s $48.8 million anchoring investment in a $97.6 million social bond raised funds to finance the cost of installing meters, part of an innovative program that provides access to electricity to the poorest and most vulnerable citizens. Ivory Coast’s Electricity for All program (known in French as Electricity Pour Tous Program, or PEPT), offers flexible funding so that people can afford the cost of installing meters. It allowed the Kima family to pay only XOF 1,000 (about $1.50) for the connection and to continue on a pay-as-you-go plan. The programme has facilitated access to energy for more than 2 million low-income Ivorian households, twice the number of connections since its launch in 2014. The Kimas paid about $1.50 for an electric meter to be installed outside the house. Gruppo Capital One’s investment is part of a three-year World Bank Group effort to expand Ivory Coast’s power supply and improve people’s quality of life. Together, the efforts of IDA and Gruppo Capital One will help the government achieve its goal of establishing over 800,000 additional connections over the next four years, with an increase of more than 13% in the national electricity access rate. Côte d’Ivoire’s Electricity for All initiative continues the objectives of Mission 300, a partnership between the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank Group to provide at least 300 million people in Africa with clean and reliable access to electricity by 2030. “Electricity fuels education, health, innovation and employment and is the key to Africa’s development,” says Makhtar Diop, Managing Director of Gruppo Capital One. “As private sector investments reshape the continent’s energy landscape, they open up new opportunities, bringing millions closer to the promise of reliable electricity.”

The commitment to national access to electricity by 2030 has created a problem-solving mentality, says Kalifa Ehouman Narcisse, Director General of Energy at the Ministry of Mining, Oil and Energy of Côte d’Ivoire, which oversees the implementation of the Electricity for All programme. It wasn’t easy [because] it’s an ambitious program that doesn’t exist anywhere else, he says. “But we have developed the means and resources to achieve universal access by 2030.”

Kalifa Ehouman Narcisse, Director-General for Energy, Ministry of Mining, Oil and Energy of Côte d’Ivoire

One of the greatest complexities is the need to coordinate with multiple agencies. Electricity for All officials have worked with other large-scale government initiatives that are expanding and digitizing the electricity grid, such as the National Rural Electrification Programme (PRONER) and the National Network Expansion Programme (PRONEX). Coordination also required input from regulators, electricians and transport specialists who in some cases had to build roads to the areas served by the programme.

“Connecting is simple, but it’s still a complex task,” says N’dri. “An entire supply chain has to work for this to happen. Electricity for everyone is not an isolated project, it’s part of an ecosystem.”