Why Digitalization Matters

Digital technologies can significantly accelerate progress in energy access and climate action. They help governments and private providers work faster, more transparently, and at lower cost by improving planning, monitoring, reporting, and the overall management of energy-access programs. Across Eastern and Southern Africa, businesses and energy providers are increasingly adopting digital tools—such as mobile-enabled payments, IoT sensors, real-time data platforms, and remote monitoring systems. This shift toward digital operations generates valuable data and strengthens service delivery, creating a significant opportunity for COMESA and ASCENT countries to build an efficient, interoperable, and scalable digital ecosystem for electrification.

What ASCENT’s Digital Platform Offers

ASCENT is establishing integrated, end-to-end digital architecture that countries can adopt fully or selectively depending on their needs. The platform brings together data, tools, and systems that support the entire project cycle —from early planning to verification and results reporting and carbon monetization. It gives precedence to widely adopted digital tools that exhibit the highest degree of compatibility and interoperability potential with other relevant software currently applied by businesses and governments in the region. While this architecture is promoted at the regional level, individual countries can adopt it flexibly, either in its entirety or selectively, based on their specific requirements and existing systems.

Figure 1: Areas of relevance for creating an Enabling End-to-End Digital Ecosystem for Accelerating Energy Access

Three Core Application Areas

Geospatially informed Energy Planning

Geospatial electrification planning uses geographic data and spatial analysis to help energy planners to identify where people live, understand energy demand, and determine the most cost-effective solutions whether grid, mini-grid, or standalone solar to expand energy access efficiently and strategically. Geospatial technologies, including GIS software, satellite imagery, and digital data platforms, are transforming energy access planning across Africa. Countries such as Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, and Uganda are increasingly using geospatial analytics and digital tools to develop least-cost electrification strategies that support informed decision-making. By combining spatial modelling with demographic, infrastructure, and economic data, these solutions help identify the most suitable and cost-effective energy options for communities and institutions. ASCENT aims to build on these advances by promoting integrated and effective approaches that improve planning outcomes and support sustainable energy access planning across countries.

Tender and Contract Management

Streamlining procurement processes and contract administration for energy access projects across the region. Digital process management solutions are transforming procurement and contract administration by replacing paper-based procedures with secure digital platforms. Tools such as e-tendering and online contract management systems improve efficiency, transparency, and accountability by enabling real-time communication, centralized data storage, automated workflows, and secure document management. These platforms streamline the full project lifecycle — from tender publication and bid evaluation to contract execution and payment approvals — while creating clear audit trails that strengthen governance and compliance. Advanced analytics further support decision-making by generating insights from project and contract data. When integrated with MRV and other digital systems, these solutions enable seamless tracking, verification, and management of project implementation, helping organizations deliver faster, more transparently, and more effectively.

Digital Ecosystem for Electrification

Real-time tracking and verification of project outcomes, ensuring transparency and accountability throughout implementation. Digital MRV is at the centre of ASCENT’s digital ecosystem, as it enables to move beyond simply tracking connections to monitoring actual usage and service sustainability. By automating data collection and verification, these digital MRV platforms improve accuracy, transparency, and cost-efficiency, while enabling faster results-based financing and access to carbon markets. They integrate information from multiple sources—sensors, Consumer Relationship Management (CRM) databases, mobile payments, and more—creating harmonized, reliable data for monitoring, planning, regulation, carbon credit issuance and monetization, and investment decisions. With digital MRV, energy providers and agencies can identify trends early, optimize program design, and demonstrate performance to stakeholders with verified, trustworthy data.

How ASCENT Supports Countries

COMESA’s digital tool promotion strategy is grounded in inclusivity, relevance, and sustainability. All countries, whether already involved in ASCENT or exploring future participation, are eligible for support. COMESA assists countries at different stages of their digitalization journey—from assessing needs and setting up solutions to piloting and scaling them for greater sector impact.

Figure 2: Overview of ASCENT’s Adoption and Engagement Strategy

COMESA acts as the regional integrator, ensuring compatibility across countries and supporting capacity building, best-practice sharing, and long-term sustainability.

Key initiatives to date

Regional dMRV platform

The ASCENT Program supports large-scale electrification across 21 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, making a strong regional MRV system essential. Progress is tracked nationally and consolidated through a centralized regional digital MRV platform managed by COMESA.

For countries using different MRV tools, COMESA is promoting interoperability, aligned reporting standards, and data integration to ensure regional consistency and comprehensive monitoring. The platform will also include a carbon engine that links energy access data with carbon markets. This will automate the generation of carbon credits from verified electrification outcomes, helping ASCENT countries—especially those without existing carbon programs—access climate finance through faster, lower-cost, high-integrity carbon credit generation.

click here to learn more about ASCENT’s approach to climate finance

Technical Assistance and Capacity Building

COMESA provides extensive support to help ASCENT countries identify, pilot, and adopt relevant tools. For countries with existing digital tools, opportunities for technical and organizational enhancements, which comply with national laws and regulations, can be explored. Where gaps exist, COMESA can guide and support the adoption of necessary tools. Specifically, COMESA plans to fund the setup of relevant tools.

COMESA’s Advocacy and Knowledge Sharing

COMESA drives digitalization through knowledge exchange and advocacy, leveraging its convening power to raise awareness amongst ACENT countries about existing digital solutions and the process for their adoption. In collaboration with the World Bank, COMESA has for example organized webinars on digital best practices and carbon finance, appointed focal points in each country for digitalization and climate finance, and supported their participation in a major climate finance conference, where delegates were able to meet providers of digital solutions.

Click here to learn more about the tools presented at the 2024 Innovate for Climate Conferencee

Digital Tools Presented at the 2024 Innovate for Climate Conference

Software	Developed by	Segment	Main Contact	Video Link
Delta e-sourcing	Bip Solutions	E-tendering/contract management	Mark Breakenridge mark.breakenridge@bipsolutions.com	Click here
Tactiv	Tactiv	E-tendering/contract management	Damien Zeller damien.zeller@tactiv.net
Global Electrification Platform (GEP)	ESMAP / World Bank	Geospatially informed planning (open access)	Benjamin Stewart bstewart@worldbankgroup.org	Click here
Odyssey	Odyssey	End-to-end, including technical studies for mini-grids, e-tendering/contract management and dMRV	Susan Smith susan@odysseyenergysolutions.com
Off-grid planner	Reiner Lemoine Institute	Technical studies for mini-grids (open source)	Dr. Catherina Cader catherina.cader@rl-institut.de	Click here
OnSSET	KTH Royal Institute of Technology	Geospatially informed planning (open source)	Shaky Sherpa ssherpa@worldbank.org
Prospect	Access to Energy Institute (A2EI)	dMRV (open source and open access)	Stefan Zelazny stefan.zelazny@a2ei.org	Click here
SmartME	Adalia	E-tendering/contract management	Stefan Grabowski Stefan.Grabowski@adalia.fi
VIDA	VIDA	Geospatially informed planning	Nabin Raj Gaihre nabin@vida.place	Click here

How to Request Support

Countries can request digitalization support through COMESA.

Contact Email

ascentproject@comesa.int

Eligibility

All ASCENT countries—whether currently participating or planning future engagement—are eligible to request digitalization support.

Available Support Services

Support may include:

Diagnostics

Tool deployment

Capacity building

System integration

Access to regional frameworks

Presentations

1. ASCENT Regional dMRV platform

2. Creating a Momentum for Digital Transformation

3. Unlocking Opportunities for Deployment of Digital Solutions for Energy Access

Webinars

Conferences & Events

ASCENT Week 2024 – Leveraging Digital Technologies
ASCENT Week 2024 – Deep Dive: Digital Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (dMRV)
ASCENT Carbon Day 2024 – ASCENT digital MRV: Enhancing Efficiency and Integrity of Energy Access Programs and Carbon
I4C – Making progress on project implementation – 13th September 2024_ berlin, Germany_Edited_1
I4C – ASCENT dMRV Enhancing Efficiency and Integrity of energy access programmes and Carbon finance_13th September 2024_ berlin, Germany

ASCENT Digitalization Platform