MCDF PROVIDES GRANT TO PREPARE CROSSBORDER LUAPULA HYDROPOWER PROJECT IN DRC AND ZAMBIA
15 December 2023
New Administrative Capital, Egypt, 21 September 2023
Source: mcdf
A USD 4.2 million grant to support the preparation of a new African Development Bank (AfDB) hydropower project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia was approved by the Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) Governance Committee during its meeting in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital on 21 September.
The MCDF grant will finance technical, economic, and financial feasibility studies, as well as an environmental and social impact assessment, for the AfDB Luapula hydropower project’s three priority hydropower sites and their associated transmission corridors.
MCDF’s underlying investment objective is to support and strengthen generation and transmission capacity to balance demand in Zambia’s Copperbelt province and the DRC’s Katanga mining region, contributing to regional integration and socioeconomic development in Zambia, the DRC, and interconnected regions in the Eastern Africa Power Pool and the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP).
“The proposed Luapula Hydropower Scheme will provide approximately 789 megawatts (MW) of green hydro baseload capacity to the Zambian as well as Democratic Republic of the Congo power grid, significantly increasing the available generation power to a growing mining sector for both countries, which aligns well with the African Development Bank and its partner’s objective to invest in increasing power generation and green baseload capacity within the continent,” said AfDB Chief Utility Management Officer Cecilia Liezl Harmse.
“This will also improve power trading in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region, effectively contributing to positive economic growth,” she added.
The Luapula hydropower project was identified as a priority project in the SAPP Plan and in the SADC and Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa priority list.
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