The African Development Bank and the multi-donor Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA) have joined the government of Cameroon to launch an initiative to bolster the deployment of electricity metering services in the country.

The Bank and FAPA will provide technical assistance to the government through the Electricity Sector Regulatory Agency, ARSEL. This includes facilitating feasibility studies for the ringfencing of metering services, drafting of regulations to address the gaps and sensitization workshops.

On behalf of the Bank’s Central Africa regional operations manager, principal country economist Claude Nkodia said the project would support national efforts to provide efficient electricity metering services. “Collectively, these efforts will reduce the current metering gap, estimated at 1.8 million meters in 2017,” he said.

Adolphe Ndjouke Thome, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Water Resources and Energy, said the project will increase and safeguard competitive metering services and encourage more private sector involvement. The technical assistance provided aligns with the Bank’s commitment to create an enabling environment for private investment in the energy sector, including tackling policy and regulatory challenges.

FAPA, administered by the Bank, is a thematic trust fund that provides grants for technical assistance and capacity building to support the Bank’s Private Sector Development Strategy. In addition to the Bank, the Government of Japan, the Austrian Development Bank and the Government of Austria are the contributors.

The project is a response to the findings of the Bank's Electricity Regulatory Index for Africa report, which evaluates the progress of regulatory frameworks across the continent and recommends actions for improvement. For Cameroun, one of the recommendations was to enhance the quality of service and loss reduction