The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), in partnership with the World Bank, will convene the inaugural ASCENT Week 2025 from 22 to 26 September at Ciela Resort, Lusaka, Zambia. This flagship event marks a turning point in the region’s energy transformation agenda.
ASCENT Week will gather over 350 high-level participants from across Eastern and Southern Africa, including officials from national governments, energy ministries, rural electrification agencies, utilities, regulators, and ASCENT project implementation units. The event will serve as a platform to accelerate the rollout of the ASCENT Program, a bold initiative aimed at expanding energy access to over 100 million people across 20+ countries.
Valued at US$5 billion, the ASCENT Program is designed to catalyze an additional US$10 billion in financing from development partners. At its heart is the COMESA Regional Acceleration Platform, a US$50 million facility that provides technical assistance in digital monitoring, knowledge exchange, and capacity building.
During a media briefing held at the COMESA Secretariat, on 18 September 2025, Dr. Malama Chileshe, ASCENT Project Coordinator, alongside Mr. Ahid Maeresera, ASCENT Technical Manager, emphasized the event’s strategic objectives including raising awareness of the ASCENT Program’s implementation progress, exploring opportunities to accelerate results and impact as well as sharing emerging good practices across participating countries.
“As you may be aware, the ASCENT Programme was launched last year and is now just over a year old. This meeting will highlight COMESA’s support mechanisms for implementation and will also be used to chart the next steps in program execution,” said Dr. Malama.
A key highlight of the event will be the participation of the Access to Energy Institute (A2EI), and Odyssey Energy Solutions who support several COMESA member states and operates the regional Digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (dMRV)platform. A2EI will showcase its innovations at the COMESA booth, offering valuable insights for countries considering dMRV deployment.