The Cameroonian Minister of Economy, Alamine Ousmane Mey, signed on March 7, 2023 a loan agreement for an amount of 35 billion FCFA with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). This loan will make it possible to electrify more than 13,000 households in 200 localities in Cameroon thanks to solar energy.
This investment is part of the third phase of the solar electrification project for 1,000 localities, launched in 2016 by the Cameroonian government and its Chinese partner, Huawei Technology. The first two phases of the project, which aim to electrify respectively 165 and 184 localities, are still in progress.
However, this project will only contribute to increasing the rate of rural electrification in Cameroon, estimated at only 20% by the Rural Electrification Agency (AER). It will only electrify 11% of the 9,000 localities in the country which are still plunged into darkness for lack of electricity, according to Gaston Eloundou Essomba, the Minister of Water and Energy.
To electrify all these localities, it will be necessary to mobilize 874 billion FCFA and the Cameroonian government has created the Electricity Sector Development Fund for this purpose. In 2021, this fund had already received an endowment of 7 billion FCFA.
