The mini-grid, expected to connect over 1,500 residents to electricity, is part of the company’s wider plans to install over 20 mini-grids in Benin, which will serve more than 30,000 people across 20 rural localities collectively, through a total 1.2 MW capacity.

Residents of Amagba community, Benin, the Edo State capital, were excited and grateful to the Benin branch of the Nigerian Society of Engineers for donating solar street lights spanning a distance of 420 metres on Emwinmadomwan Street.

Two and a half years after Oikocredit invested in the off-grid enterprise Weziza, we look at how better access to electricity is supporting economic development in West Africa. New mini-grids have created a positive impact for more than 2,500 households and 15,000 people.

In the Kalalé District of Benin, West Africa, basic health services are hard to come by. Historically, a lack of electrical infrastructure in this region has meant no power to pump clean water or refrigerate vaccines. That has now changed due to a recently completed project by the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF).

In Benin, there are many rural localities that are not yet electrified. In these and even in those that are already electrified, the use of electricity for cooking food is non-existent. Cooking meals in rural areas is still done with firewood fetched from bushes miles from their village mostly by women.

The African Development Bank has awarded Benin a total loan of €164.25 million ($178,740,956) to improve urban service delivery and build climate-resilient infrastructure to deal with flooding caused by climate change.

Construction has started on a mini-grid project set to give low-income communities in Benin access to electricity. The Beninese Agency for Rural Electrification and Energy Management (ABERME) has signed an agreement with ENGIE Energy Access.

The compact, which started implementation on June 22, 2017, and closes on June 22 of this year, has successfully strengthened power sector regulation, improved utility management, attracted private sector investment into renewable power generation, and advanced energy efficiency throughout the country.

Polluted air is the second biggest killer in Africa; for moto-taxi drivers the risk from exhaust fumes is high. New bikes could be part of the solution – if they can be made affordable.