Synopsis

In Madagascar, reliable electricity is helping entrepreneurs start businesses, farmers reach new markets, and employers keep production moving. From rural solar mini-grids to new investments in the national grid, expanded access to affordable, reliable power is creating opportunities for households and businesses alike.

Through Mission 300 and projects supporting Madagascar’s energy sector, the World Bank Group is working with government and the private sector to expand electricity access, strengthen the grid, attract investment and help create the conditions for more jobs and economic growth.

At first glance, the only thing that connects Nantenaina Randrianasolo, a scrappy 25-year- old farmer, and Lucie Ramiarinarivo, the regional manager of Jacarandas, a large spice exporting business, is a keen appreciation of turmeric, the main ingredient in curry.

Nantenaina knows where and how to source, slice and dry the orange root from neighboring farmers in the lush agroforests surrounding Anivorano Est, in rural Madagascar where he lives. And Lucie’s team knows how to assess the quality of turmeric brought in by farmer cooperatives, how to store, grind and finally package for export vast quantities of the golden spice in the port city of Toamasina, three hours away.

Beyond the local spice trade, the economic fortunes of the smallholder farmer and agro-industrialist are also tied to something very basic: affordable and reliable access to power.

A recent trip down Route Nationale 2 (RN2), the main economic artery connecting the capital city of Antananarivo to Toamasina, Madagascar’s busiest port, shows why Mission 300’s ambition to accelerate the pace of change through energy reforms and investments could be transformative. From households gaining first-time connections, to large businesses and small entrepreneurs, power is an essential ingredient for economic growth and optimism about the future.

Mini-grids, big plans

The road to Anivorano Est, where we met Nantenaina stuffing sun-dried turmeric chips into canvas bags, is hilly, muddy and heavily rutted. Driving northwest from RN2, it takes 45 minutes to cover 13 miles, and many people prefer to travel by riverboat with their merchandise. The poor road helps explain why the district of roughly 25,000 inhabitants, nestled among banana, clove and lychee trees, isn’t connected to the grid despite its rich agriculture. For a while, a Catholic mission provided a few hours of electricity a day to its neighbors by running a generator, but villagers were plunged in darkness when that arrangement ended.

Today, electricity in Anivorano Est is mainly supplied by WeLight, a private company with backing from development partners including IFC, that has deployed solar mini-grids in 174 villages in Madagascar. In Anivorano Est, WeLight installed solar panels roughly the size of a tennis court backed by battery storage on land owned by the district in two phases: first in 2023, and later in 2025 with World Bank financial support under the Digital and Energy Connectivity for Inclusion in Madagascar project (DECIM) which provided financing based on expansion investments resulting in new electricity connections.

The mini-grid in Anivorano Est can now supply 33 kWp – or “kilowatt-peak”, the standard unit of measurement for solar systems’ potential under ideal sunlight conditions, and supplies electricity to about 300 households.

In Nanteniana’s extended family, a pay-as-you-go connection allows 85-year-old Esther Rakotondrasoa to watch news and entertainment on television for the first time and see much better at night. Her grandson and Nanteniana’s cousin, Faniriana Odilon Emmanuel, 19, has become a power user in the last two months, by combining electricity access with a subscription to Starlink. He now resells unlimited Internet access to his neighbors, among other digital services.

As for Nantenaina, he plans to get his own connection as soon as he makes a large enough turmeric sale, to “not take advantage of [his] grandmother.” He wants to create a Facebook page for his product, cut out the middleman, and start his own cooperative one day. “I’d love to buy a truck, but first: electricity!” he said with the confidence of a man with a plan.

Through the DECIM fund, WeLight and other private providers of distributed renewable energy are being rewarded to both expand to new sites and intensify existing setups. While the WeLight mini-grid in Anaivorano Est already powers everything from home lighting and electronics to light welding tools and a half-dozen streetlights, cloudy days and limited installed capacity often prevent more energy-intensive productive uses. “If there were more electricity, we could do  a lot more here,” said Herilala Richard, the deputy mayor of Anivorano Est. With support from DECIM, the company plans to add 11 kWp more capacity to meet growing demand.

Solar panels for resilience and savings

Where RN2 reaches the Indian Ocean, the port city of Toamasina spreads beneath palm trees amid dramatic debris left over from cyclone Gezani, a devastating storm that hit the area in February 2026.

Buildings collapsed, port cranes were toppled, and transmission lines were knocked over for miles. A whopping 91% of the electricity network was down and the city experienced a total blackout.

In the last four months, the national power utility JIRAMA has worked relentlessly to restore power, replacing aging infrastructure with new transmission lines, new transformers, new poles and cables. World Bank financing was deployed with record speed to procure all necessary material and contract 11 local private businesses to rehabilitate the grid under the DECIM and Least-Cost Electricity Access Development (LEAD) projects. The new grid infrastructure is already improving the quality and reliability of power, but about 4 MW of capacity are still offline (while a high-voltage cable is being purchased), causing continuing loadshedding and challenges for local industries.

Jacarandas, the spice exporter, has been impacted. The business lost its offices, a whole warehouse, and various equipment to the cyclone. It also lost equipment when unsteady current in the aftermath of the cyclone made machines run backwards and break down.

Although the quality of the regional power grid has improved thanks to post-cyclone infrastructure upgrades, a large company like Jacarandas, which processes turmeric but also pink peppercorn, clove, ginger, cinnamon and more for export, can’t afford to stay idle during power cuts.

“We experience an average of five outages a day, but we can’t stop working. We have about 500 workers and need 8-hour work days. So, it’s more cost-effective to use generators,” said Lucie Ramiarinarivo, the regional manager of Jacarandas. The company consumes about 100 liters of gasoil a day to run generators that power conveyor belts, cutting tools, electric driers, grinders, and package-sealing equipment.

To limit costs and increase its resilience, Jacarandas plans to install solar panels as soon as the roof on its warehouse is reinforced.

Power that lifts the entire economy

Beyond mini-grids and industrial rooftops, solar power also has the potential to fill energy generation gaps on a national scale.

Because Madagascar is an island which cannot import electricity from its neighbors, all electricity needs to be produced locally, through thermal, hydro, solar or wind sources. While preparing its National Energy Compact under Mission 300, the government of Madagascar studied different paths to accelerate the rate of access to electricity from a baseline of 36% of the population in 2024.

“In Madagascar, solar energy stands out as one of the fastest and most affordable options, with strong potential to lower electricity costs for households and businesses. But bringing these solutions to scale requires a stronger energy sector and greater private investment,” said Atou Seck, World Bank Group Manager for Madagascar. “The private sector has a central role to play in helping more people gain access to power. Through projects such as LEAD, DECIM and ASCENT, combined with reforms that strengthen the sector and attract investment, the World Bank Group is helping make affordable, reliable electricity available to more Malagasy people. Our goal is simple: ensure that every community has the power it needs to create jobs, grow businesses, and drive economic growth.”

Together with the IMF, the World Bank supported the development of a recovery plan for JIRAMA, the national utility, including a Debt and Arrears Repayment Plan. As part of this deal, independent power producers were given more confidence that they would be paid on time by JIRAMA, while power producers committed to produce and sell more renewable energy, at lower prices, to the utility.

At Mandrasolar, a vast solar system set on a plain off RN2, workers were busy in June 2026 setting up 15.4 MW of solar panels, backed by 10 MWh of batteries. Once completed, the plant will feed electricity to the national grid. It will produce enough electricity for about 14,000 households and reduce load shedding in the nearby city of Moramanga and on the interconnected national grid.

The same DECIM project that is supporting mini-grid operators like WeLight is also helping Madagascar invest in new transmission lines connecting Mandrasolar and other independent power producers to the grid.

“We should be copy-pasting this type of system all over the country to reduce loadshedding and meet both domestic and industrial demand,” said Lindon Toto, project manager of the solar plant. “We contribute to improving the grid, and when there are fewer cuts, everyone can grow.”

From off-grid to on-grid, solar kits to solar plants, the sense of momentum brought by more reliable and affordable electricity is palpable at every scale.

In the words of Marianne Vaviroa, 56, a smallholder farmer in the hamlet of Ambonivato Ivoloina (a place name that translates as “perched on a rock”), where solar kits were distributed in the wake of cyclone Gezani, “something in the air has changed. It’s hard to say what exactly, but when I look down the road and see more lights, it makes me feel good. If there is more electricity, it will bring even more progress.”