By Rodney Kazibwe, Director of US Government Relations at the ONE Campaign; and Casey Dunning Davis, US Foreign Policy Director at the Energy for Growth Hub
This piece is cross-posted with The ONE Campaign and The Energy for Growth Hub.
“Power will power job creation.”
This bold statement from Liberia’s Minister of Finance and Development Planning Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan succinctly sums up why the ONE Campaign, alongside the Energy for Growth Hub, hosted a conversation on West African energy needs on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The panel — “Powering West Africa’s Growth: US Support for Regional Energy Abundance” — brought together Minister Ngafuan and Jason Small, Acting VP of Compact Operations at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an independent US agency focused on development and growth in lower-income countries.
Why MCC? Why Liberia? Why now? Currently 54% of MCC’s portfolio is focused on the energy sector, including power investments in Senegal, Sierra Leone, and a recently signed first-of-its-kind regional power investment with Côte d’Ivoire. In addition, MCC is in the midst of co-designing a power investment package with Liberia. All of these programs add up to over $1.4 billion in US development assistance to West Africa.
ONE convened the conversation to highlight the critical links between energy and poverty reduction. The deep dive covered why US grant funding through MCC has created a web of energy investments across West Africa, how Liberia hopes to use some of that grant funding, and the role reliable power plays in growth and job creation.
From a rich and focused dialogue, here are our top five takeaways, direct from the panelists.
1. “Nothing is possible without power.” – Minister Ngafuan
This statement sums up why we wanted to have this conversation. Put simply, energy and development cannot be separate silos. Any country seeking to grow its economy and improve the wellbeing of its citizens must have adequate power. Acting VP Small repeatedly linked reliable power to private investment and job creation as a throughline for MCC’s investments. Minister Ngafuan noted that reliable, affordable electricity is critical to Liberia’s industrial transformation. And industrial transformation will bring the jobs of the future.
2. “The challenge we face is that our people are impatient. They want power and they want it now.” – Minister Ngafuan
Governments can face tension between providing power for firms and power for households. But industrial goals must be matched with expanding access; it’s not an either/or but a yes/and. The Liberian government has set a target of connecting 75% of households; current access levels stand at 40%. Using critical donor support like that of MCC, the Liberian government must pursue politically necessary access goals in the short-term while building out energy infrastructure for industry in the medium-term.
3. “[Investors] want to know that they can hook up to power, that it has a set price, that it can be counted on and that it can serve their needs.” – Acting VP Small
The panelists agreed private investment in the power sector is the ultimate goal. But they also discussed how a country like Liberia first needs to build high-quality infrastructure to lay the foundation for investors. MCC’s grants fund infrastructure and sector reforms that the private sector absolutely need, but won’t fund themselves.
4. “If the energy sector is our priority, it should be our priority through our budget. In this current budget, one of the areas with a good chunk of allocation is energy.” – Minister Ngafuan
Liberia is putting its money where its mouth is. This attitude aligns with MCC investment standards that ask partners to commit funding and political capital to transform the sector, alongside donor support. But Liberia’s Mission 300 Compact estimates that the energy sector needs about $1.5 billion in generation, grid expansion, mini-grid, and off-grid investments, more than any one government, donor, or investor can provide alone. Domestic commitment and coordinated external support must go hand-in-hand. As Minister Ngafaun put it, “I don’t see conflict; I see complementarity.” The MCC Compact now under development can complement World Bank Group and African Development Bank support under Mission 300, while MCC’s emphasis on government-led coordination can help keep partners aligned long after its own investment ends.
5. “Recovering commercial and technical losses could be equivalent to building an entirely new power plant.” – Acting VP Small
Improving utility solvency — a power company’s ability to collect enough revenue to cover its costs and maintain reliable service — is an important, if under-discussed, step toward improving a country’s power system. Mining was the highest contributor to Liberia’s GDP last year, and the biggest complaint from that industry was the huge cost of power. MCC and the Liberian government hope to use the forthcoming MCC energy investment to make the power sector more reliable and predictable through a series of policy and regulatory reforms. Building generation has to come hand-in-hand with reducing losses.
This conversation reinforced why energy must remain at the heart of development. Liberia and West Africa need more generation, alongside the grids, reforms, and financially sound utilities required to deliver power reliably and affordably. For policymakers, Liberia’s experience and MCC’s country-led, time-bound grant model point to a clear approach: back national priorities, coordinate public support, and create the conditions to unlock private investment.
Together, these efforts can expand access for households and deliver reliable power to businesses, turning electricity into industrial growth, jobs, and greater opportunity. That growth can open new markets for American business and support jobs and prosperity both abroad and here at home.
