IDA for Africa Heads of State Summit

Join us as African Leaders unveil a bold transformation agenda in Nairobi. Leaders will rally around an ambitious agenda, aiming to improve lives and create new opportunities, with the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) as a cornerstone for success. The summit will also witness the launch of a coalition uniting civil society, foundations, the private sector, and young people, to champion a robust replenishment of IDA's resources.

The Summit will include closed and open sessions, some of which will be publicly broadcast on World Bank Live.

IDA is the world’s biggest social impact fund for people and planet and the largest provider of development financing to low-income countries.

• Africa is at the heart of IDA’s global mission to end poverty on a livable planet, representing more than 70% of IDA’s global commitments. 
• IDA is an affordable source of financing in 39 low-income countries in Africa. Its concessional financing comes in the form of grants and low/no-interest loans.
• Over six decades, this partnership between IDA and Africa has helped many countries advance wellbeing and economic development:
• In Eastern and Southern Africa, IDA has helped deliver essential health, nutrition, and population services to 90 million people—of which 62 million were people living in countries impacted by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV), delivered access to new and improved electricity to 11 million people, and enhanced access to broadband internet to 21 million people.
• In Western and Central Africa, IDA has helped to provide more than 50 million people with access to social protection programs, helped more than 1.8 million girls enroll in secondary education, and nearly tripled the number of people with access to electricity since 2000.

 Africa is key to global growth, security, and ending poverty on a livable planet. 

• Africa is expected to have the world’s largest workforce in the next decade. By 2075, one-third of the world's population—and of the working-age population—will be African. IDA’s ability to equip and empower women and young people with new skills, accelerate digitalization, create jobs, and build infrastructure is an opportunity expand and sustain growth, tapping into Africa’s potential. 
• Prosperity and access to basic services are essential for lasting peace and security: about 462 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are living in extreme poverty, 600 million people remain without access to electricity, while rising conflict and violence, combined with climate shocks, stand to negatively impact economic outlooks unless investments are made today to address core development challenges such as poverty, energy, climate change and governance. 
• IDA works across sectors to advance Africa’s sustainable and inclusive development, including in contexts of fragility, conflict, and violence. 

IDA is essential to help Africa realize its ambitions amid difficult financing conditions.  

• With more than half of financing provided in the form of grants, and the rest in no or extremely low interest credits that can be repaid over long periods, IDA is an affordable source of financing that does not saddle countries with debt.
• The risk of debt distress remains high in Sub-Saharan Africa with more than half of countries facing unsustainable debt burdens. In 2023, governments in the region spent over 45% of their revenues on debt repayments and interests, up from 31 % in 2022.  
• IDA’s unique capacity to leverage concessional finance, with every donor dollar multiplied nearly fourfold for recipient countries, creates more financing to support countries’ efforts to meet the climate challenges by expanding access to green energy and increasing adaptation and resilience.

IDA’s long-standing partnership with Africa is achieving impressive results.

People 

• The Sahel Women's Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) has supported about 2 million vulnerable adolescent girls and women. More than 1 million benefitted from schooling and safe spaces interventions, over 900,000 have access to modern contraceptive methods thanks to the training of midwives, and 140,000 young women were trained in entrepreneurship.  The program has since expanded to 9 countries and is now called Sub-Saharan Africa Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend Plus project (SWEDD+).
• In Mozambique, where half the girls drop out of school by 5th grade and almost half are married by age 18, the Harnessing the Demographic Dividend project has since 2021 helped more than 600,000 girls to stay longer in school through incentives, such as providing bicycles to reduce distance from schools, and through a strong behavioral change campaign promoting the benefits of girls’ education among parents and community leaders.

Planet

• Through the West Africa Food Systems Resilience Program, over 1.3 million farmers in Burkina Faso, Mali, Sierra Leone and Togo have received agricultural goods and services, and over 2,800 metric tons of fertilizers have been distributed.
• In Burundi, the Landscape Restoration and Resilience Project has brought close to 100,000 hectares of degraded land under more sustainable management and improved farmers’ practices. The project has also changed many women’s lives. Over 100,000 land certificates were delivered thanks to the project, with 76% of the certificates bearing women's names, offering women better chances to make a living - and better incentives to care for the land. 

Prosperity

• The West African Economic and Monetary Union Affordable Housing Finance Project has enabled 12,000 people to become homeowners. IDA financing helped to leverage $385 million through regional and international bond issues to allow banks to offer more flexible terms for customers.   
• The Kenya Youth and Opportunities Project has reached nearly 311,000 vulnerable youth, 50% of them women. This includes over 133,000 through skilling interventions and business support. About 86% of youth earned a wage or were self-employed; 20% of those employed prior to the interventions saw an increase in income; and 48% of the recipients of business support interventions created jobs for others.

Infrastructure 

• In West Africa, the Senegal River Basin Development Organization’s Transmission Expansion Project transmits 600 MW of electricity to Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania, boosting access to electricity and economic transformation of the region. The interconnected grid is the most advanced subregional power pool in West Africa, increasing electricity trade for the West Africa regional power market.
• The Tanzania Rural Electrification Expansion Program (TREEP) has helped Tanzania achieve one of the fastest access expansion rates in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade. Since 2017, TREEP has provided over 6.3 million people with access to electricity and added new connections for more than 1,600 healthcare facilities and nearly 6,000 education facilities.

Digital 

• In Mauritania, Private Sector, Digital, and Human Capital Reform Development Policy Financing provided by IDA is improving the business environment, strengthening financial inclusion, making broadband services more accessible and affordable, and enhancing the quality and access to basic education and vocational training.
• In Malawi, where the Digital Foundations Project supported the construction of broadband infrastructure, the development of e-government platforms, and the establishment of a digital innovation hub, 4.3 million people have benefited from increased access to affordable, high-quality internet services. 

See more examples of IDA Impact in Africa