The World Bank Group, an organisation with the stated goal of ending extreme poverty, has promised an investment of $5 billion for electricity generation in several African nations.

  Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Tanzania all stand to gain from the investment, in partnership with the United States’ Power Africa initiative. The project seeks to reduce the number of people in Africa without access to electricity, which currently stands at 600 million, despite the fact that the continent possesses some of the world’s largest hydropower, geothermal, wind and solar potential, as well as significant oil and natural gas reserves.

  According to WBG, Africa currently uses just 8 percent of its hydropower potential.

  "The U.S. Government and the World Bank Group are working now on specific tasks and milestones which could help to achieve one quarter of Power Africa’s goal of generating 10,000 megawatts of new power in Sub Saharan Africa," said World Bank Group President, Dr. Jim Yong Kim.

  Not only will the investment improve quality of life by providing access to electricity, but it will also allow poor families to save money on more expensive or unhealthy forms of energy, including diesel generators or wood for indoor cooking fires.

  "Like Europe and the rest of the world, Africa deserves the same opportunity to exploit this green source of power to improve the lives and economic prospects of its people," said the World Bank’s Vice President for Africa, Makhtar Diop.

  "Beyond building up power generators, they must be connected to the market, which calls for regional cooperation to build the transmission network. We are working with African leaders and their development partners to create power pools in Africa’s East, West, Central, and Southern sub-regions."

  "Those countries with abundant geothermal, gas, hydro, solar, and wind resources can feed their excess power supply into a common pool, while neighboring states with less energy and generation capacity can benefit from this integrated approach to delivering electricity to their people."