Sierra Leone’s Minister of Finance, Sheku F Bangura,  and Alice P. Albright, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation have pre-signed the Compact in Washington, D.C., early Friday, September 27, 2024.

President Julius Maada Bio will sign the final agreement on Sierra Leone’s MCC Compact package later today.

This $480 million compact will build on Sierra Leone’s continued commitment to energy sector reform, a key component of the country’s MCC threshold program that concluded in 2021, while strengthening the foundation of its energy sector for future growth and sustainability.

The compact includes three key projects: Distribution and Access Project, Power Sector Reform Project, and Transmission Backbone Project. They seek to assist the country in addressing a binding constraint to its economic growth: the insufficient availability of affordable and reliable electricity to satisfy demand among households, businesses, and social institutions.

The compact is designed to strengthen the foundation of a reliable electricity sector through investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure, development of a strong enabling environment for independent power producers, and capacity building support for the utilities and key sector institutions.