The role of the private sector is particularly significant inAfrica—the focus of this report. Africa’s population is expectedto increase to 1.7 billion in 2030. By 2050, the continent will be home to 2.4 billion people—a quarter of the world’s future population. A growing and rapidly urbanizing Africa requires substantially more services and basic infrastructure, including power, ports, roads, and railways. According to the WorldBank Group, Africa’s unmet infrastructure investment needs are estimated at more than 45 billion dollars annually. Only a robust private sector can create the jobs and deliver higher standards of living to an increasingly young African population. In the poorest and most conflict-prone countries, private markets barely exist, slowing development.These markets must be built up and energized, work that willrequire new types of financial instruments that can attract private investment and mitigate risks for investors.This report offers a template for how we can move forward—by showing how investors, governments, local enterprises, donors,and individuals are working together to address investors’ riskconcerns and deliver more investment with positive impact. It allows governments to procureprivately funded solar power stations—quickly, transparently,and at the lowest tariffs possible. Private developers, fortheir part, benefit from an all-in-one package of advice, risk management, finance and insurance. So far, three countries are on board—Madagascar, Senegal and Zambia—and dozens of top-tier companies are competing forthe chance to build solar plants in markets they would otherwisenot know how to navigate. The program’s first auction, inZambia, resulted this year in the lowest-priced solar power todate in Africa, just six cents per kilowatt hour. In a countr ywhere only one fifth of the population has access to electricity,consumers will now have a new source of affordable, renewableenergy. IFC has a track record of fostering and sustaining privateenterprise in the most difficult environments.this report will encourage governments, donor partners, and the private sector to collaborate in new ways.