ITUC-Africa, PSI, IndustriALL reject AfDB’s Mission 300 electricity project

Claim it’ll burden Africa with more debt

AFRICA’S leading trade union organisations have criticised the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) flagship Mission 300 initiative, warning that the ambitious plan to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030 is bound to fail unless governments abandon what they describe as a botched private-sector-driven model of electrification.

In a joint statement on the sidelines of the 2026 annual meetings of the African Development Bank in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, the African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa), Public Services International (PSI), and IndustriALL Global Union, accused the AfDB and the World Bank of recycling policies that have already failed millions of Africans.

The organisations argued that Mission 300 is merely a continuation of the AfDB’s decade-old New Deal on Energy for Africa, which promised near-universal electricity access by 2025 but fell far short of its targets.

According to the unions, “Mission 300 marks a continuation of the neoliberal approach to electrification. The policies proposed under Mission 300 are almost identical to the AfDB’s New Deal on Energy for Africa initiative that was launched a decade ago.”

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They described the earlier initiative as “a spectacular failure,” noting that despite years of reforms and promises to attract private capital, roughly 600 million Africans remained without access to electricity at the beginning of 2026.

The groups warned that Mission 300 faces the same risk because it relies heavily on attracting private investors through so-called “bankable projects” while requiring governments to absorb much of the financial risk.

“Mission 300 likely faces a similar fate because it also relies on ‘crowding in’ private investment by creating ‘bankable projects’ for private interests,” the statement said.

The unions expressed concern that although the World Bank Group and AfDB have pledged to mobilise $48 billion in concessional financing, the funding would be tied to policies designed to “de-risk” private investments.

“This, we believe, is both untenable and unjust,” they declared.

The organisations further questioned the economic logic of the initiative, citing World Bank estimates showing that Sub-Saharan Africa requires between $35 billion and $50 billion annually to achieve universal electricity access under Sustainable Development Goal Seven (SDG 7).

They argued that Africa could be pushed deeper into debt if governments continue borrowing heavily to subsidise private energy investments.

The groups also criticised the African Union’s endorsement of Mission 300 at its 38th Summit in Addis Ababa and the backing it received from G20 leaders, saying both institutions embraced the initiative without adequately scrutinising its assumptions.