ESMAP Helps Triple Electrification Rates in Rwanda

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An ESMAP program in Rwanda helped develop a Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) for the country’s dilapidated energy sector.
 
Three years later, the SWAp had trebled the number of grid-connected households and provided a model for future collaboration between the government and its development partners.

ESMAP Helps Triple Electrification Rates in Rwanda

With a chronically low national electrification rate and a dilapidated energy infrastructure, the government of Rwanda faced a steep uphill battle when in 2008 it committed to triple household electricity access over a mere five-year period. Energy sector management assistance program (ESMAP) laid the groundwork for this rapid extension of grid electricity by helping develop a national rollout plan using a sector wide approach (SWAp) for the energy sector. The impacts of the energy SWAp were immediate and widespread. By September 2012, 16 percent of Rwandans had access to the grid and the Rwanda Energy Corporation (RECO) was connecting 100,000 new households a year, a four-fold increase over the 2008 connection rate.