The World Bank (WB), acting as administrator for the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid ( GPOBA), has approved a grant of 6.75 million U.S. dollars to help more poor households in rural areas of Bangladesh gain access to affordable electricity supply.
The new grant, signed in the last month, is in addition to a grant of 7.2 million U.S. dollars approved last year, bringing GPOBA's funding commitment for this project to about 14 million U. S. dollars, the Washington-based lender said in a statement here Sunday.
It said the new funds mean an additional 175,000 households in rural areas of Bangladesh will be able to install individual Solar Home Systems (SHS).
According to the WB, the GPOBA financing is a boost to the on- going Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy project that supports the SHS program in Bangladesh, which is considered to be one of the most successful SHS programs in the world.
So far, GPOBA funding has already made the installation of SHS for 119,229 target households possible, it said, adding that the overall goal is to help a total of 315,000 households in areas where connection to the electricity grid is not a viable option.
The GPOBA is a global partnership program administered by the World Bank. GPOBA was established in 2003, initially as a multi- donor trust fund, to develop output-based aid approaches across a variety of sectors including infrastructure, health, and education.