The World Bank’s decision to lift its ban on financing nuclear power projects marks a turning point for global energy development and opens doors to broader financial support and global collaboration for countries such as Ghana that are planning their first commercial nuclear power reactors, the head of Nuclear Power Ghana said.

Stephen Yamoah, executive director of the company set up to own and operate the country’s first proposed nuclear power station, said in a social media post the policy shift, the first of its kind since the World Bank last funded a nuclear power project in 1959 in Italy, reflects growing international confidence in nuclear power as a clean, reliable energy source for industrial growth.