Mission 300, launched in 2024 by the World Bank Group (WBG), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and partners, aims to connect 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa to electricity by 2030. The target includes 250 million people through the WBG and 50 million through AfDB.

The Mission 300 Civil Society Dialogue on March 12, 2026, convened civil society leaders to share updates and progress and to invite questions, concerns, and solutions. This was the third virtual CSO Dialogue in the series.

Sheila Oparaocha, Director at ENERGIA International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy, moderated.  The March 12 Dialogue featured a special thematic focus on women and clean cooking.

Mission 300 Updates

The dialogue underscored strong momentum toward Mission 300, with updates from Erik Fernstrom, World Bank Regional Director, and Caroline McKenzie, Principal Program Coordinator on Energy and Climate at the African Development Bank. Under World Bank Group-financed operations, 39 million people have been connected to date, while AfDB operations have connected around 5 million people. Both shared the paths to reach their targets. Countries are translating ambition into action through National Energy Compacts, which set policy measures and country energy-access targets. To date, 30 countries have launched compacts, with 11 more expected this year.

Gender Inclusion in Mission 300

Gender inclusion is emerging as a core driver of impact. Fowzia Hassan, Senior Operations Officer and gender expert at the WBG, presented Mission 300's gender inclusion framework, which provides a menu of interventions for countries to consider in their compacts, aiming for a 30% increase in women's participation in the energy sector. She outlined key barriers facing women in the sector, including limited access to clean and sustainable energy, socio-cultural norms, and a lack of gender-inclusive policies. Many National Energy Compacts include gender-responsive clean cooking strategies and solutions; several also include development of a national gender and energy strategy and/or interventions to increase women-owned enterprises. Fowzia also highlighted the Women in Energy Network Africa (WEN-Africa), a regional initiative to increase women’s employment through hiring initiatives and programs.

Civil Society Q&A — Key Themes

The discussion underscored strong and substantive engagement from civil society participants, who expressed a clear desire to play a more active role as partners in delivery, accountability, and ensuring impact reaches those most in need.

CSO Engagement: Participating Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) requested more structured, continuous, and inclusive engagement with CSOs — particularly at the country level. They called for clearer mechanisms to integrate CSO inputs into decision-making and to track how feedback is acted upon. CSOs are encouraged to engage with Country Delivery and Monitoring Units (CDMUs), which are government-led at the national level and drive the implementation of compacts, and to participate through existing consultation processes. The Mission 300 team committed to greater transparency about events and forums where it will be present.

Methodology and Transparency: The discussion clarified that only World Bank Group- and AfDB-financed projects count toward the 300 million connection target. A tracker is available on the World Bank website; AfDB will launch its own tracker in the coming weeks, with AfDB's Map Africa currently providing access to project documents and implementation status in the interim. CSOs emphasized that success must be measured by reach to the most excluded populations, not simply by aggregate numbers. Concerns were raised about the inaccessibility of certain project documents for some West African countries on the portal — feedback that was formally noted.

Gender ambition and inclusion: CSO participants called for a higher gender participation target (potentially 50%), more specific budget allocations (15–20% of project budgets dedicated to gender), and broader definitions of gender inclusion beyond clean cooking—including leadership, entrepreneurship, and employment across private sector companies and cooperatives, not just utilities. The importance of including women with disabilities was also raised.

Youth Inclusion was acknowledged as an area for growth. Both institutions are expanding work on productive uses of energy and plan to better track downstream job creation. AfDB's "Jobs for Youth" initiative works in parallel to link energy access to SME and youth employment opportunities.

CSO Database: Participants asked for Mission 300 to support a CSO database to facilitate ongoing peer engagement beyond these formal dialogues.

Previous Dialogues

Mission 300 CSO Dialogue, September 2025

Mission 300 CSO Dialogue, January 2025