Financing by EU Institutions and Member States

European Institutions and Member States (EI & MS) show a strong dedication to financing SDG7-compliant projects in Africa, and continue to be a global leader in this regard, providing consistent amounts of financing. EI & MS have committed EUR 18.7 billion to SDG7- compliant projects in Africa over the 2014-2022 period, accounting for 92% of all energy-related commitments. SDG7-compliant commitments showed a slight upward trend over the study period, with an annual average of EUR 2 billion. Of this, 30% came from EU institutions and 70% from the EU Member States.

Non-SDG7 funding, representing 8% of energy-related commitments, declined over the study period, reaching its lowest levels in 2021 and 2022, underscoring the EU’s strong commitment to supporting clean energy and access in Africa.

Only multilaterals have provided more SDG7-compliant financing than EI & MS since 2014. However, EI & MS provide substantial amounts of funding to both the core budgets of multilateral organisations and directly to SDG7 projects those multilaterals support (EUR 3.6 billion). Europe has provided more contributions via this route than all the other donors combined.

The analysis of European contributions by sector shows that RE projects received the highest share of public commitments (EUR 10.7 billion), followed by T&D projects (EUR 5.5 billion) and policy and capacity-building (EUR 1.9 billion). Energy efficiency projects received EUR 329 million of the commitments over the period and clean cooking projects EUR 120 million.

Not only does the level of commitments provided by EI & MS’s to SDG7-compliant projects demonstrate substantial efforts, but European funding has been largely directed at those most in need. Lower Middle Income Countries (LMICs) and Least-Developed Countries (LDCs) received EUR 7.5 billion (40% of total), and EUR 5.8 billion (31% of total) of commitments respectively between 2014 and 2022.

As a demonstration of EI & MS’s efforts in providing financing to those most in need, LDCs received 45% of all European ODA grant funding. However, commitments coming from EI & MS, similarly to the global picture, show a high level of concentration, with two countries – Morocco and South Africa – receiving 13.4% and 9.6% respectively of SDG7-compliant commitments

Official development assistance finance (ODA loans, ODA grants and ODA equity investments) accounted for 95% of total EI & MS’s SDG7-compliant commitments in Africa made between 2014 and 2022. Over the period, EI & MS provided EUR 10.5 billion in ODA loans and EUR 6.6 billion in ODA grants.