A 10-year, $1 billion initiative to bring electricity to Uganda’s rural areas has been launched by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, East African Business Week Reported.

The 2001-founded Rural Electrification Strategy and Plan achieved success in heightening electrification coverage from one percent to 7 percent, but failed to meet the 10 percent rural electrification coverage benchmark. According to East African Business Week, planning didn’t commence until 2003 when the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) launched. The first project wasn’t implemented until 2006.

“We now know that there are about 1.5 million connections needed; 1.3 million on grid and the 200,000 on solar PV so as to increase rural access to electricity,” Medard Muganzi, ERA Manager Energy for Rural Transformation said in the report.

“To achieve that, we have learnt that there is a need for public sector-led as opposed to private sector-led investment in rural electrification. This is because the private sector mainly looks at a financial return,” he said.

The initial goal set in 2001 sought to raise coverage from one percent to 10 percent by 2012. Now the agency is setting out to almost quadruple their achieved 7 percent progress reaching for 26 percent rural electrification progress by 2022.

East African Business Week noted that because consumerism in rural areas is relatively low, private investors have not been able to make a return or break even. Muganzi also said that most within the private energy sector are unwilling to invest. In addition, other financial resources aren’t readily available.

“Private sector and cooperatives of rural concessions in Pader, Kibaale, Bundibugyo, Kasese and Kanungu are all struggling and run the risk of collapse due to lack of connectivity viability. So in this second RESP, government will take the lead in investment and then the private sector takes over the management,” he added.

The government is hanging on to the hope that the project will sprout more opportunities for economic development. Thus far, $300 million of the $1 billion has been funded to cover the first three years. Seven-hundred million, between 2016 and 2022 still has to be raised. Although government funds will help, donor funding has and will largely support the project.

“Without donor support, we wouldn’t have been able to do even a tenth of what we have done so far. Everything we have so far done has been as a result of the either the donors or targeted financing from the energy fund,” Godfrey Turyahikayo, ERA Executive Director said.

Beyond the rural reach, the ERA has boosted national electricity access, supporting the 10 percent leap from four percent to 14 percent between 2001 and 2012.