Af r i can governments, investors and international financial institutions must significantly scale up investment in energy to unlock Africa’s potential as a global lowcarbon superpower, according to a new report from Kofi Annan’s Africa Progress Panel, Power, People, Planet: Seizing Africa’s Energy and Climate Opportunities.
The report calls for a ten-fold increase in power generation to provide all Africans with access to electricity by 2030. This would reduce poverty and inequality, boost growth, and provide the leadership that is sorely missing at the international level.
“We categorically reject the idea that Africa has to choose between growth and low-carbon development,” said Kofi Annan, chair of the Africa Progress
Panel, noting that “Africa needs to utilise all of its energy assets in the short term, while building the foundations for a competitive, low-carbon energy infrastructure.”
According to the report, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 621 million people lack access to electricity – and this number is rising. Excluding South Africa, which generates half the region’s electricity, SSA uses less electricity than Spain. It would take an average Tanzanian eight years to use as much electricity as an average American consumes in a single month, the report notes, and over the course of one year someone boiling a kettle twice a day in the United Kingdom uses five times more electricity than an Ethiopian consumes over the same year.
The report notes further that power shortages diminish the region’s growth by 2 – 4 percent a year, holding back efforts to create jobs and reduce poverty. Despite a decade of growth, the power generation gap between Africa and other regions is widening. Nigeria is an oil exporting nation, but 95 million of the country’s citizens rely on wood, charcoal and straw for energy.
The report reveals that households living on less than $2.50 a day collectively spend $10 billion every year on energy-related products, such as charcoal, kerosene, candles and torches. Measured on a per unit basis, Africa’s poorest households are spending around $10/kWh on lighting – 20 times more than Africa’s richest households. By comparison, the national average cost for electricity in the United States is $0.12/kWh and in the United Kingdom is $0.15/kWh.
This is a significant market failure, it notes, as low-cost renewable technologies could reduce the cost of energy, benefiting millions of poor households, creating investment opportunities, and cutting carbon emissions.
The report says Africa’s leaders must start an energy revolution that connects the unconnected, and meets the demands of consumers, businesses and investors for affordable and reliable electricity.
Among others, the 2015 Africa Progress report urges African governments to: Use the region’s natural gas to provide domestic energy as well as exports, while harnessing Africa’s vast untapped renewable energy potential; cut corruption, make utility governance more transparent, strengthen regulations, and increase public spending on energy infrastructure; redirect the $21billion spent on subsidies for loss-making utilities and electricity consumption, which benefit mainly the rich.
