Regional Program for Distributed Access Through Renewable Energy Solutions Phase 1 (WB-P507938)

Regions
  • Africa
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Countries
  • Central African Republic
  • Gabon
  • Liberia
  • Sierra Leone
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • World Bank (WB)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Approved
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
A
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Jun 22, 2026
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Sectors
  • Energy
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Grant, Loan
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 200.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Loan Amount (USD)
$ 85.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Grant Amount (USD)
$ 115.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 381.35 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ WB website

Updated in EWS Oct 5, 2026

Disclosed by Bank Jul 2, 2025

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

As stated by the World Bank, the project development objective is to increase access to renewable electricity for households, businesses and public institutions in participating countries. 

Regional DARES is as a regional platform to enable scaling up of both new and established cross-country market aggregation approaches to accelerate distributed renewable energy (DRE) market growth across countries in West Africa for achieving universal electrification. The program will focus on accelerating DRE market growth in the three most critical segments, namely: (i) households, (ii) productive use of energy (PUE) for enhanced food security (including irrigation, cooling and agri-processing), and (iii) critical human capital-related public services (including schools and healthcare facilities). The fourth pillar will focus on aligning policies and regulatory frameworks and building capacities in the countries (REAs, regulators etc.).

In its first phase, the project aims to provide:

(i) electricity access to 3,440,000 people and 66,800 businesses;
(ii) 16,270 electricity connections for productive uses of energy; and
(iii) electricity access to 1,750 public institutions, including health centers and schools, to enable them to provide essential public services.

The program supports the following components:

  • Component 1: Connecting People and Businesses with affordable DRE solutions including minigrids, mesh-grid and standalone systems to foster local development.
  • Component 2: Powering Food Security through DRE-based irrigation, cooling and agri-processing solutions to build resilience of food supply chains in West Africa.
  • Component 3: Powering Human Capital through the roll-out of the "Energy-as-a-Service" (EaaS) model to strengthen critical public infrastructure (incl. health centers and schools) via OGS systems.
  • Component 4: Technical Assistance focused on enabling environment as well as regional tender design and capacity building of national Rural Electrification Agencies and Sector Regulators.
Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

World Bank Team Leader:

Jan Friedrich Kappen - Lead Energy Specialist
Email: jkappen@worldbank.org 

Abhishek Malhotra - Energy Specialist
Email: amalhotra6@worldbank.org 

Anshul Rana - Senior Energy Specialist
Email: arana1@worldbank.org 

Omar V Al Sherif - Energy Specialist
Email: osherif@worldbank.org 

Monyl Toga - Senior Energy Specialist
Email: mtogamakang@worldbank.org 

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

To submit an information request for project information, you will have to create an account to access the Access to Information request form. You can learn more about this process at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/access-to-information/request-submission

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE WORLD BANK

The World Bank Inspection Panel is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who believe they are likely to be, or have been, adversely affected by a World Bank-financed project. If you submit a complaint to the Inspection Panel, they may investigate to assess whether the World Bank is following its own policies and procedures for preventing harm to people or the environment. You can contact the Inspection Panel or submit a complaint by emailing ipanel@worldbank.org. Information on how to file a complaint and a complaint request form are available at: https://www.inspectionpanel.org/how-to-file-complaint

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How it works