Guinea-Bissau has connected more than 20,788 households to electricity in 90 localities under the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Access Project, reaching about 145,000 people, the ECOWAS Commission said on November 3 after the project's final steering committee meeting in Abuja. The World Bank finances the $225mn project, which covers Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia and Mali and closes on December 31, 2026.
Analysis: Guinea-Bissau accounted for 90 of the project's 490 localities and about 145,000 of the nearly 500,000 people reached. That is roughly 6% of its population, by our calculation. The connections matter because only about 31% of the population had electricity in 2025, the energy minister said in October. He projected close to 40% in 2026 on projects backed by the World Bank and the African Development Bank. ECOWAS did not say how the $225mn was split among the three countries. The project closes on December 31, and it remains unclear whether the extension of at least 30 months that Mali requested would cover Guinea-Bissau.
Source: ECOWAS Commission, ECOWAS Commission press release, November 3, 2026, Project to November 2026 and Project total; Agência de Notícias da Guiné (state news agency, Bissau), ANG (via Inforpress), 'Cabo Verde/Fórum de Investimento: Cabo Verde e Guiné-Bissau defendem transição energética e acesso universal', October 28, 2026, 2025