Burundi sets out to take electricity access past 50% by 2030 with Weza Power

A 25-year, $1.4bn partnership signed in Bujumbura on 16 October gives Weza Power, part of Anzana Electric Group, the distribution network in half of Burundi. It plans 52,000km of new and upgraded lines and more than 1.2 million new connections as access rises from about 15%.

More than half of Burundi should have electricity by 2030, up from about 15% today, under a 25-year public-private partnership that the government expects to bring first-time or improved access to an estimated 8 million people.

Weza Power, an Anzana Electric Group company, will expand and operate the distribution network across half the country. It plans to build 52,000km of new and upgraded distribution lines and connect more than 1.2 million new households and businesses. The national utility, REGIDESO, keeps supplying power through the transmission network and distributing it in the other half.

The work is expected to create more than 2,000 direct jobs in installation and operation and more than 30,000 indirect ones. Installed generation capacity stands at about 183MW, according to Hassan Kibeya, Minister of Mineral Resources, Energy, Industry, Trade and Tourism, who called the partnership one that “addresses one of Burundi’s most important infrastructure priorities.”

The $1.4bn is to be raised through blended finance designed to bring in private commercial capital and concessional funding without adding to public debt. The World Bank’s ASCENT programme, IFC, MIGA and the African Development Bank are named as Mission 300 partners. They sit alongside the US International Development Finance Corporation, Gridworks, part of British International Investment, the US Trade and Development Agency, and NORAD.

Anzana has been investing in Burundi since 2018 through Songa Energy, which runs one operational hydropower plant and has a second under construction. It is also working with governments and partners in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo on integrated electricity platforms.

The agreement was signed in Bujumbura on 16 October, and the US State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs called it the largest investment in Burundi’s history. President Évariste Ndayishimiye described electricity as “the foundation of Burundi’s economic transformation and a key pillar of our Vision 2040-2060 ambitions.”