The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal - OMVG Interconnection Project

Overview & Synopsis

Ratings of the OMVG Interconnection Project for The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal were as follows: Outcome was moderately satisfactory, Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and M and E quality was modest. Lessons and recommendations emphasize the need to grant technical assistance units such as ATMO a clear, independent mandate with sufficient authority and resources resilient to institutional changes, and to provide close, sustained capacity support to the Project Implementation Unit for complex linear infrastructure while ensuring an appropriate environmental assessment category with commensurate staffing, time, and budget. For multi-donor operations, roles and responsibilities should be formalized early, ideally through a memorandum of understanding, while limiting interdependencies across parallel financing to reduce coordination risks and clarify accountability, particularly for environmental and social safeguards. The political economy of operating strategic transmission assets warrants early, high-level consensus on governance and operations, with a readiness to adapt arrangements as realities evolve. Long-term sustainability depends as much on institutional and commercial arrangements as on physical assets; thus, operations and maintenance frameworks, governance structures, transmission service agreements, and payment mechanisms should be developed early, resourced adequately, and reflected realistically in the project development objective. The financial health of national utilities is decisive for durable regional trade; national programs should strengthen utility finances, reduce losses, and ensure adequate investment in generation and distribution. Resettlement financing should be incorporated into project design rather than relying on counterpart funds in fiscally constrained settings; completion of Resettlement Action Plans and right-of-way clearance should be conditions precedent to contractor mobilization and enforceable as legal covenants. High-quality resettlement requires a robust, geolocated asset inventory and formal reviews whenever design changes affect footprints; pairing international expertise with local specialists improves land tenure understanding, consultation, and adaptation to evolving safeguard standards. In Fragility, Conflict, and Violence and low-capacity environments, implementation schedules should account for systemic risks from the outset and build flexibility for adaptation, recognizing that timely, well-justified restructurings are an appropriate tool of adaptive management. Finally, regional interconnections can catalyze national energy transition and decarbonization beyond the stated objective of enabling trade; appraisals and results frameworks should capture these broader impacts explicitly to guide ambition, measurement, and policy alignment.