The agreement, two years in negotiation, commits a consortium of Gulf sovereign wealth funds to finance an integrated network of solar generation, high-voltage transmission and green-hydrogen conversion stretching from the Arabian Peninsula to Karachi, Mombasa and beyond. Officials involved in the signing described it as the first energy deal conceived from the outset as a three-continent system rather than a portfolio of national projects.
Under the compact's first phase, twelve gigawatts of new solar capacity will be built across the Gulf and financed alongside undersea interconnectors crossing the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea. The second phase reserves capital for grid modernisation in partner countries — a condition negotiators from South Asia and East Africa insisted upon, arguing that generation without distribution would repeat the failures of earlier mega-projects.
The money is allocated, the boards have voted, and the first tenders go out this quarter.
Energy economists caution that execution risk remains substantial: the corridor crosses some of the world's most complex maritime jurisdictions, and previous interconnector proposals have stalled on tariff disputes. But the scale of committed — rather than pledged — capital marks a departure. "This is not a memorandum of understanding," one adviser to the consortium said. "The money is allocated, the boards have voted, and the first tenders go out this quarter."