Ibrahim Hassouna is rarely surprised when the power fails at Al Seksek, the plastics company where he works in Gaza. On a bad day, its 130 employees suffer through dozens of blackouts that halt assembly lines. “Every time the current goes out, it delays production for up to 30 minutes,” says Hassouna, a 41-year-old manager. “It’s a big waste of time and money.”
Hassouna’s frustration is shared by people across Gaza. The territory between Egypt and Israel is facing one of its worst power crises in decades, with
blackouts routinely stretching up to 16 hours a day
. The shortages have shrunk Gaza’s economy and have been especially devastating to its manufacturing sector, which has shriveled by 60 percent since the late 1990s.
The World Bank Group is aiming to help reverse that decline. In early December, IFC pledged $8 million to help the area’s biggest business park, the Gaza Industrial Estate, install solar panels on the roofs of several of its buildings. The investment was part of a financing package that included guarantees of up to $7 million issued by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and grants of $1.8 million from the World Bank. The solar panels will form the largest solar array in the West Bank and Gaza and produce 10 gigawatt hours of cheap, green electricity per year.
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