For years, South Africa’s power crisis impacted nearly every part of daily life—darkening homes, disrupting essential services, constraining businesses, and holding back economic growth. In 2023 alone, power outages cut GDP by 2% and cost 500,000 jobs.

At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed another critical vulnerability: Africa’s heavy dependence on imported vaccines and the risks communities face when global supply chains break down.

Today, South Africa is tackling these vulnerabilities by combining government reforms with targeted multilateral support to attract private investment in reliable energy and local vaccine manufacturing, helping to build a more resilient economy, reinforce health security, and create jobs. The World Bank Group (WBG) is contributing to this effort through financing, policy support, and instruments designed to help mobilize private capital.

Over the past four years, the amount of private capital mobilized through the WBG in South Africa grew almost ninefold—from $440 million in FY22 to $3.9 billion in FY26, totaling nearly $7 billion. This growth in capital helped accelerate transformation of the energy sector.

Unlocking Energy Investment

South Africa’s energy crisis was partly because of long domination of the sector by the state-owned utility Eskom, with limited space for private participation. Licensing requirements prevented independent power producers from entering the market, while restricted grid access and financing risks held back investment in new power generation.

To address these constraints, the government launched a broad reform program to open the sector to private investment. It removed licensing requirements, expanded private generators’ access to the grid, introduced tax incentives to promote renewable energy uptake among households and small businesses, and established the Energy Bounce-Back Scheme to reduce credit risks for commercial lenders financing smaller projects. An initial $1 billion WBG development policy loan in 2023 supported market opening reforms, with subsequent policy, technical assistance, and lending support helping deepen reforms and reinforce investor confidence.

The results have been significant. By July 2026, reforms supported by the WBG had helped create the conditions for private renewable energy investment to increase sixfold since 2023, reaching about $3.9 billion this year. Electricity supply also became more reliable. Eskom’s Energy Availability Factor had risen to 66.16% from 55% in 2023—its strongest year-to-date performance in six years—while load shedding had been virtually eliminated for about 18 months.

In South Africa, like elsewhere, reliable and affordable energy is essential for strong economic growth and job creation.

“I think in the next two years, to shift the dial towards a 3% or even 5% growth rate, our models show we’ve got to fix infrastructure. I think we’re on the way with energy.”

Haroon Haroon Bhorat, Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Research Unit at the University of Cape Town

The next phase of the energy-sector reform is to sustain these gains by expanding transmission capacity and completing market reforms, including mechanisms to mobilize private investment into the grid.

South Africa’s experience shows how sustained government reform, backed by targeted multilateral support, can reduce investment barriers, mobilize private capital at scale, and deliver more reliable services for people and businesses.

Mobilizing Partners and Capital for Vaccine Security

A similar combination of reform, partnership, and private investment is now helping South Africa confront a vulnerability laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic: its dependence on imported vaccines. When outbreaks hit, speed saves lives—but Africa has too often had to wait. For families and health workers, delays in vaccine deliveries can mean fewer options to contain disease before it spreads.

Until recently, less than 1% of vaccines used on the continent were manufactured in the region.  Dependence like this on imports leaves countries vulnerable to supply disruptions, price shocks, and export restrictions. The pandemic underscored the urgency of building vaccine-manufacturing capacity closer to the people who need them.

The South-African biopharmaceutical company Biovac is now developing a facility that will manage the full vaccine-production process and produce vaccines for diseases including cholera, polio, pneumonia, and meningitis for use across Africa and globally. At full scale, the facility is expected to produce up to 250 million doses a year—helping improve public health and demonstrating Africa’s growing capacity to manufacture and deliver essential medicines.

The WBG convened government, regulators, investors, and other private sector partners to advance regulatory approvals, encourage local procurement, and build demand for locally manufactured vaccines. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) provided $20 million financing and transaction support and helped mobilize a $225 million financing package for Biovac. This included $34 million from private capital, alongside backing from the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank, Afreximbank, the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, MedAccess, Proparco, and credit insurers. The investment also advances the WBG’s Africa Initiative for Medical Access and Manufacturing (AIM2030)goal of expanding access to essential health products and doubling local manufacturing in Africa over the next five years.

“Vaccine manufacturing is only a part of the ecosystem. There is so much support and partnerships that go with it. As we start manufacturing our own vaccines, we will strengthen those other entities across the continent, which I think is really important. Once you bring those elements home, you create jobs, you create industrialization, you create improvement, and so by providing that opportunities, we open up the doors and make sure people don’t have to leave to make an impact elsewhere.”

Craig Mitchell, Chief Financial Officer of Biovac

The facility is already creating jobs, and once operational, is expected to create at least 7,000 direct and indirect jobs across the broader supply chain.

Together, these energy and vaccine examples show how World Bank Group support can help remove investment barriers, attract private capital—turning reforms into more reliable services, stronger health security, and jobs for South Africans.