The World Bank has approved $50 million to expand solar-powered agricultural solutions in Nigeria and five other African countries, aiming to boost productivity, reduce post-harvest losses, and increase clean energy access.
Okay News reports that the funding will support the deployment of solar-powered cold rooms, refrigerators, water pumps, and grain mills across Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Implementation will be led by Clasp, a Washington DC-based non-profit focused on energy efficiency and clean energy access.
The initiative has attracted strong support from development partners, including the Rockefeller Foundation, which has committed $12 million and signalled potential for additional resources.
“There is always the ability to scale that up. There’ll be more resources country by country as well,” said Rockefeller Foundation President Rajiv Shah during a visit to a solar-powered cold storage facility operated by SokoFresh in Nairobi.
The financing is channelled through the Productive Use Financing Facility (PUFF) under Mission 300, a flagship programme backed by the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB) to provide electricity access to 300 million Africans by 2030.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for over 80 per cent of the world’s population without electricity access, with an estimated 600 million people still lacking reliable power.
PUFF bridges the affordability gap by providing grants, subsidies, and technical assistance to suppliers and distributors of solar-powered equipment, targeting rural and off-grid communities.
The programme completed a two-year pilot phase from 2022 to 2024, supporting 24 businesses across the six countries, and is now transitioning to full-scale deployment.
The expansion is expected to significantly impact Nigeria’s agricultural value chain by addressing post-harvest losses caused by inadequate storage, unreliable electricity, and limited access to modern processing tools.
Agriculture employs more than a third of Nigeria’s workforce, but inefficiencies continue to erode farmers’ incomes and food supply.
SokoFresh, a pilot beneficiary, operates solar-powered cold storage facilities and currently serves about 19,000 farmers across East Africa.
Solar-powered refrigeration enables farmers to store produce longer, access higher-value markets, and reduce waste across the supply chain.
The initiative aims to improve food security, raise farmers’ incomes, and accelerate the transition to clean energy across the participating countries.
