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From Africa Recovery, Vol.18 #1 (April 2004), Watch page NEPAD The governments of Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania have launched a $300 mn project to connect their national electric power grids. The announcement came in Lusaka on 26 February, and construction on the first phase of the project, a 650-kilometre transmission line from the Zambian power station at Pensulo to Mbeya in Tanzania is expected to get under way in 2007. The project will allow Kenya to tap some 800 megawatts a year in excess Zambian hydro-electric power through the Tanzanian grid, strengthening regional trade and economic integration. The project is an extension of the Southern African Power
Pool (SAPP) programme launched in 1995 by the Southern African
Development Community and subsequently integrated into the Pan-African
Transmission Grid initiative of the New Partnership for Africa's
Development (NEPAD), the continent's economic development programme.
SAPP has already received some $200 mn in World Bank financing
to expand and rationalize the regional market in energy, and
the Bank has indicated interest in the Kenya-Zambia expansion.
Over the long term, NEPAD envisages connecting SAPP to its West
African counterpart and then on to Egypt, creating an electric
power grid covering much of sub-Saharan Africa. This article may be freely reproduced, with attribution to
"Africa Recovery, United Nations". Africa Recovery Tel: (212) 963-6857
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