The Universal Energy Facility (UEF), managed by the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll), marked its fifth anniversary on Monday, January 26, with reflections on impact, lessons learned, and plans to scale results-based financing for universal energy access. Senior leaders and partners convened for this high-level discussion commemorated on the International Day of Clean Energy.
Otubu, Senior Director of the UEF at the SEforAll, moderated one of the panel sessions reviewing five years of UEF’s impact, lessons learned along the way, and plans to scale the facility to greater heights. The discussion explored how results-based financing has supported energy access in underserved communities and how partnerships can accelerate future growth.
Opening the session, Otubu thanked partners for their continued support. They acknowledged the leadership of SEforALL’s CEO, Damilola Ogunbiyi, for championing results-based financing as a credible pathway to universal energy access. Welcoming participants joining from different time zones, she reflected on the facility’s origins when it was launched in 2020.
“When the UEF was launched, the question we set out to answer was simple but ambitious: could results-based financing unlock best-in-class energy access projects in underserved communities?” Otubu said. “Five years on, the answer is clear—yes.”
According to UEF, the facility has supported the deployment of mini-grids and stand-alone solar systems across six countries over the past five years. During this period, more than $16 million has been disbursed to developers, enabling over 60,000 people to gain new or improved access to electricity. Thousands of businesses, schools, and health facilities are now operating with reliable power for the first time.
The facility has also leveraged approximately $20 million in private sector capital, demonstrating that results-based financing can reduce risk, build investor confidence, and crowd in private investment. As noted by speakers, grant funding has played a catalytic role in this process.
In addition, the UEF has adapted its results-based financing mechanism to include clean cooking and productive-use appliances in Zambia, while providing $1 million in co-financing to support passive cooling and sustainable cold-chain solutions for agriculture across sub-Saharan Africa. These initiatives have helped catalyse an estimated $100 million investment pipeline with strong climate, development, and equity impacts.
The discussion provided an opportunity to reflect on what has worked, what has been learned, and what it will take to move further and faster. The panel featured senior leaders, including Ashvin Dayal, Senior Vice President for Power and Climate at the Rockefeller Foundation, and Carol Koech, Vice President for Africa at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet.
From the Rockefeller Foundation’s perspective, Dayal highlighted the importance of the UEF model in building confidence among philanthropic and private investors. He noted that the facility helped make both the moral and economic case for last-mile electrification and demonstrated how subsidy and grant capital can be combined with private investment, as seen historically in countries that achieved universal electrification.
“The big idea behind the UEF was one of its most important early breakthroughs,” Dayal said, adding that the disciplined implementation of results-based financing has helped build the mini-grid and off-grid electrification market while strengthening the enabling environment for diverse energy technologies.
Dayal pointed to opportunities to scale the model geographically and technologically, including through innovations being tested in Zambia and alignment with Mission 300, which aims to electrify 300 million people by 2030. He said the UEF could serve as a catalyst linking early-stage projects to larger pools of capital from multilateral development banks and private investors.
From a development and livelihoods perspective, Koech emphasised the importance of tangible outcomes such as jobs, productive use of electricity, and stronger rural livelihoods. She highlighted the role of energy as a catalyst for job creation, particularly for Africa’s young and growing population. She underscored the importance of productive-use equipment in supporting farmers, businesses, and women’s economic participation.
Panellists also reflected on the growing acceptance of results-based financing as a proven mechanism. They noted that its success over the past five years has influenced larger funders and informed broader funding approaches at scale, reinforcing private sector participation and accelerating energy connections.
Concluding the first panel session, speakers agreed that results-based financing is no longer theoretical but has been proven to deliver impact at scale. Over the past five years, the Universal Energy Facility has demonstrated that when public, philanthropic, and private partners align around clear outcomes, capital can be mobilised, risk reduced, and reliable electricity delivered to communities long left behind.
From thousands of new connections to businesses, schools, and health facilities now powered across Benin, Madagascar, Nigeria, and Zambia, the discussion reinforced a shared commitment to continue learning, innovating, and moving faster toward universal access to clean, affordable, and sustainable energy.