The goal of bringing electricity to the masses in Africa received a shot in the arm when the US Senate passed the Electrify Africa Act of 2015. The legislation will leverage private sector resources through loan guarantees to help 50 million Africans access electricity for the first-time and add 20,000 MW of power to the grid by 2020.
The legislation was sponsored by US Senators Bob Corker, Ben Cardin, Marco Rubio, and Chris Coons.
Providing access to electricity will stimulate economic growth while also improving access to education and public health.
“With limited foreign aid resources, we need to focus on innovative ways to tackle big challenges that can be self-sustaining and have a transformative impact on millions of lives,” said Senator Corker. “Leveraging private investment to bring reliable, affordable electricity to millions of people in Africa for the first time will be a real game changer in development throughout the region. By establishing an-all-of-the-above approach for expanding power generation in Africa through private capital, we can help reduce poverty and fuel economic growth.”
This was not the first time a version of this bill has been before the US Senate, the first version was introduced in June of 2013 to the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives successfully passed it out of the House, but it was never taken up by the Senate and so it died with the close of the Congressional session at the end of 2014. In 2015 it was reintroduced, with the passage in the Senate taking place in late-2015.