The Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed two energy project contracts that will help Afghanistan boost energy supplies, improve energy security and efficiency, and promote cross-border trade in energy, the bank said Tuesday.
ADB's Special Funds and the Afghanistan Infrastructure Trust Fund (AITF) financed the contracts, totaling $75 million, which were approved in 2015. The AITF, administered by ADB, is a donor-financed fund established in 2010, which aims to improve the livelihoods of the Afghan people through infrastructure development.
The projects are part of the broader Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TUTAP) regional connectivity project that ADB has been financing since 2003.
These projects will help connect the last missing links for an expanded Turkmenistan-Afghanistan power interconnection, expanding the power grid to the central, eastern, and southern provinces, and provide redundancy to the existing transmission network.
'ADB, through its new country partnership strategy, will support Afghanistan's efforts to increase the electrification rate, play a major role in power transmission both regionally and domestically, and promote clean energy, including through solar power,' ADB Country Director for Afghanistan Samuel Tumiwa was quoted as saying.
'The projects, which have been signed, will help provide more electricity for Afghan households, businesses, and industry,' he added.
The bank explained that over the coming years, ADB would support the increase in the country's electrification rate from 30 percent to 83 percent, and lift the share of domestic generation from 20 percent to 67 percent by 2030.
Energy demand in Afghanistan is increasing by almost twice its economic growth rate, and currently only about 32 percent of the population has access to grid-connected electricity.
The country's reliance on energy imports, the small size of its domestic market, the limitations in transmission and distribution networks, and governance and financing weaknesses all leave Afghanistan's energy security highly vulnerable.
Manila-based ADB was established in 1966 and is owned by 67 members - 48 from the region. In 2016, ADB assistance totaled $31.7 billion, including $14 billion in co-financing.
By Huseyin Erdogan
Anadolu Energy
energy@aa.com.tr