88 billion to light 400 rural localities

The World Bank's concessional loan is intended to finance a project that will cover six regions with underserved electricity for five years. It contributes to the implementation of the rural electrification master plan.

Over 7,389 km of electric power transmission infrastructure will be built over the next five years in the Adamawa, East, Far North, North, North West and South regions. Where is. This is part of the Rural Electrification and Access to Electricity project in underserved regions (Perace). A credit agreement, in the amount of $ 150 million or about 87.8 billion FCFA, was signed on June 12, 2020 in Yaoundé by the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development (Minepat), Alamine Ousmane Mey and the Director of Operations of the World Bank in Cameroon, Ibrah Sanoussi, for the partial financing of the project.

These funds will enable the electrification of approximately 417 new localities in certain rural areas, 315 in the Far North, 42 in the North West, 30 in the East and 30 in the South West. Nearly 1,040,952 people will benefit, including more than 521,000 people from poor families. The funds will also make it possible to connect more than 200,000 households to this electrical network. In areas where the extension of the traditional electrical network is not possible, it is envisaged the construction of production units on the basis of solar energy with a capacity of 3 MW each. Or 12 of the 26 localities that are currently electrified as isolated systems.

Structured in three components including rural electrification by extension of the network, decentralized rural electrification and support to households for production costs, Perace aims inter alia to reduce regional disparities in terms of access rate to electricity, laying the foundations for improving household access to electricity and supporting the productive industry and the development of income-generating activities. This project thus contributes to the implementation of the Electricity Sector Development Plan (PDSE) through the deployment of the rural electrification master plan (Pder) adopted in 2017.