Africa - RI-SAPP-Program for Accelerating Regional Energy and Transformational Projects

Overview & Synopsis

Ratings of the AFR RI-SAPP-Program for Accelerating Regional Energy/Transformational Projects for Southern Africa were as follows: outcome was satisfactory; Bank performance was moderately satisfactory; M&E quality was substantial. Working with regional institutions such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) proved effective for advancing cross-border energy projects at scale, channeling support from multiple partners, elevating project ownership from the national to the regional level, and facilitating complex regional integration dialogues; future operations should continue to leverage and strengthen these regional platforms to coordinate preparation, financing, and policy harmonization across stakeholders. Ensuring strong ownership and embedding mechanisms for the long-term sustainability of a regional team, notably the Project Advisory Unit (PAU), are critical; project design should proactively engage broader SAPP governance from preparation through implementation and provide a clear sustainability pathway by gradually transitioning funding and select functions to regional entities, securing multi‑year staffing and retention arrangements, and mitigating leadership turnover risks. To translate prepared interconnectors into operational trade and unlock benefits, sustained support for soft infrastructure is essential; continued efforts should prioritize coordinated system planning, regulatory frameworks including wheeling tariffs, legal and institutional reforms, and utility operational and financial performance, while advancing the operationalization of the Regional Transmission Infrastructure Financing Facility (RTIFF) to crowd in private participation alongside public utilities. Establishing clear, upfront selection criteria for project activities helps maintain focus on priorities without sacrificing needed flexibility; future pipelines should emphasize projects with credible prospects for timely financing and strong utility and government commitment, limit preparatory work that risks obsolescence, and define a small set of critical analytical products and capacity-building actions with explicit monitoring indicators focused on quality and outcomes rather than counts.