The Mission 300 initiative has connected 44 million people, but needs to accelerate significantly to hit its 2030 goal.
An average of around 50m people will need to be connected to electricity each year between now and 2030 in order to achieve Mission 300's goal of 300m electricity connections by 2030.
According to the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the partners supporting the initiative led by the World Bank and African Development Bank, Mission 300 has connected around 44m people since the beginning of its official reporting period in July 2023.
This means an average of around 50m people will need to be electrified each year between now and 2030 in order to achieve the milestone.
"The name of the game right now is acceleration," says Cassady Walters, vice president for power at the Rockefeller Foundation. "We know we have good progress, but things need to really move faster from here."
It might seem at first glance that Mission 300 is seriously off-track. However, the initiative relies on detailed planning and preparation before the physical work to bring connections can take place. A more encouraging figure is that almost 200m people are covered by projects in the pipeline, Walters says.
"I would say 2025 was really about establishing the foundations for Mission 300," she adds. "As we move into 2026, we're fully focused on acceleration."
While Mission 300 is technology agnostic, optimism that its goals remain achievable rests in large part on the falling cost of solar panels. The Global Solar Council reported last month that Africa saw a 54% rise in solar installations in 2025, the highest rate of growth globally. The body also pointed out that many imported panels appear not to be making it into official statistics on installed capacity, strongly indicating that informal rooftop connections are on the rise.
In a interview with African Business in January, Yariv Cohen, CEO of renewables company Ignite Energy Access, said his company alone was on track to deliver 100m new connections by 2030.
Finance challengeThe Rockefeller Foundation announced an additional $10m for Mission 300 during the Africa Energy Indaba in Cape Town this week. The funding is intended to strengthen National Energy Compact Delivery and Monitoring Units - the government bodies tasked with coordinating electricity investment under Mission 300 - in Malawi and Liberia.
Walters says the new funding, which builds on similar support in Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Senegal, is vital to improve monitoring and reporting, as delivery units seek to overcome bottlenecks, implement reforms and ensure investment flows into projects.
Financing remains a key challenge for Mission 300. With the US Agency for International Development scrapped last year, and European aid budgets in decline, it is becoming more difficult to fund energy access programmes from traditional sources.
Mission 300 is partly protected from the aid cuts, since the bulk of its funding has already been set aside by the World Bank and African Development Bank, along with several partner organisations. Walters warns, however, that the cuts do have "ripple effects" that affect activities that support Mission 300. For example, securing funding for a feasibility study needed to facilitate a major investment could become harder as a result of the aid shortfall, she says.
Meanwhile, around $10bn of private sector investment will be needed to secure Mission 300's objectives.
"Concessional capital is important, but what can really be the change maker is private capital," says Walters, who adds that philanthropic capital can play a key role in supporting reforms that can catalyse private sector investment.