About ASCENT

COMESA and the World Bank signed a Financing Agreement for the implementation of the Accelerating Sustainable & Clean Energy Access Transformation (ASCENT) in AFE Region Multi-Phase Programmatic Approach (MPA) in December, 2023.

The ASCENT Program design reflects the evolution of the World Bank to deliver solutions and impacts at scale. ASCENT integrates key elements of the new vision expressed in the World Bank’s Evolution:

• adopting an augmented country engagement approach that yields development outcomes at community, national, regional, and global levels;
• exploiting synergies from the mobilization of domestic revenues, private capital, and climate financing, while combining traditional and innovative instruments; and
• fully leveraging the potential of World Bank institutions, while also harnessing partnerships, recognizing that no single institution can meet the financing needs of ASCENT and that strategic concessional financing must be deployed to maximize impact.

ASCENT’s MPA will form an important part of the proposed Energy Transition and Access (ETA) Global Challenge Program (GCP), which is under development as a response to eight global challenges identified as priorities in the World Bank Evolution. The ETA GCP will aim at increasing access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy by scaling up clean energy, phasing down fossil-fuel use, and supporting a just transition. The ASCENT MPA consists of three Pillars, namely: Regional and National Platforms to Accelerate Energy Access, Expanding Grid Electrification, and Scaling Distributed Renewables and Clean Cooking Solutions.