Updated June 3, 2025
Context
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is among the five poorest nations in the world, yet is endowed with exceptional natural resources, including minerals, hydropower potential, significant arable land, immense biodiversity, and the world’s second-largest rainforest.
The hydropower potential of Inga could be transformative in a country where an estimated 73.5% of people are living on less than $2.15 a day in 2024 and only 1 in 5 people has access to electricity, and in a region where the lack of electricity is a major brake on progress and poverty reduction.
The World Bank Group recognizes the scale of both the opportunities and challenges associated with developing Inga’s unique potential in ways that benefit the country broadly and sustainably, while also realizing some of the regional and global benefits that the appropriate development of Inga would bring.
The Inga hydropower site
The Inga hydropower site is located on the Congo River between Kinshasa and the Atlantic Ocean. The site is characterized by particularly high average river flows (the second largest in the world after the Amazon), a natural drop of around 97 meters caused by rapids, and a bend in the river that makes a variety of lower-impact designs possible. The first hydropower plant, Inga 1, was built in 1972 with an installed capacity of 351MW, while Inga 2, built in 1982, has an installed capacity of 1,424 MW. These two power plants currently operate at about 80% of their capacity, but nevertheless represent the majority of electricity generated by the national energy utility, SNEL.
The Inga site is globally unique due to the immense scale of its hydropower potential (around 42,000 MW) and the diverse opportunities for its development. Effectively harnessing this potential could be transformative for the DRC and provide significant benefits to Sub-Saharan Africa and the world more broadly. The next project—Inga 3—could generate between 3,000 and 11,000 MW depending on the design approach, with widely differing economic, environmental, social, and financial costs and benefits. Based on previous studies, there could be up to eight different hydropower projects clustered at the Inga site which could be developed over time, depending on the needs of the DRC and surrounding countries.
Previous World Bank engagement
In 2014, the World Bank Board approved a $73.1-million IDA grant for the Inga-3 Basse Chute (BC) and Mid-Size Hydropower Development Technical Assistance Project, with $22.4 million of parallel co-financing from the African Development Bank. The financing supported a flexible suite of technical assistance for Inga and other mid-size hydropower sites, including strategic advice to the Government of DRC, complementary studies, capacity building, and institutional strengthening. The Bank withdrew from the project in 2016 due to strategic differences with the government at that time. Only 6% of the grant had been disbursed at that time.
Inga 3 as an economic transformation opportunity
The Government of DRC has developed a new vision of Inga as an integrated development program that goes beyond the hydropower site and delivers broad benefits for energy access, forest protection, local area development, green mineral value chains, infrastructure and connectivity, as well as strengthening skills, jobs, and governance. On June 3, the World Bank Board of Directors approved a $250 million IDA credit—the first phase of a $1 billion multiphase program—to help the DRC lay the foundations for the sustainable development of Inga 3.
Ahead of any investments in hydropower, the first phase of the Inga 3 Development Program will create local development opportunities, strengthen institutions, and finance a range of technical studies that will be required for further decision-making by the Government of DRC. In particular, the Program will invest in priorities outlined by Kongo Central communities who live in districts that are close to the Inga site. It is expected to benefit approximately 100 communities (1.2 million people) through improved access to clean water, electricity, and roads. Approximately 10,000 people are also expected to benefit from skills and higher education training.
Synergies with Mission 300
At the same time, the World Bank Group is redoubling its efforts to support energy access increases in Africa, including through the Mission 300 program, which aims to connect an additional 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030 in partnership with the African Development Bank. As part of this program, the DRC has developed an Energy Compact to increase electricity access from 21.5% to 62% by 2030, providing access to approximately 82 million people. The compact action plan includes investments in a wide variety of electricity generation, transmission and distribution opportunities, as well as reforms across the energy sector. The Inga 3 Development Program will build on and reinforce these broader changes in the energy sector, including contributing to the longer-term scale up of generation locally and regionally.
Climate solutions
More broadly, with the world’s second-largest rainforest, massive hydropower resources, and mineral reserves vital to the global green energy transition, the DRC has the potential to fulfill its ambition of becoming a globally important “climate solutions country.” The recent World Bank Country Climate Development Report outlines the potential for the DRC to achieve this. The appropriate development of Inga provides a practical pathway to realizing some of this promise by generating large amounts of clean energy and potentially reducing demand for charcoal while promoting a cleaner and greener mining industry.