Energy Will Play A Critical Role In The Success Of Africa’s Free Trade Area

Energy will play a critical role in the success of
Africa’s free trade area

—Damilola Ogunbiyi,
Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for
Sustainable Energy for All.

Damilola
Ogunbiyi is the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL)
and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General
for Sustainable Energy for All. On the sidelines of the UN
High-Level Political Forum taking place in New York, Ms.
Ogunbiyi spoke to Africa Renewal’s Kingsley Ighobor on a
range of issues, including how to tackle energy poverty in
Africa. Here are the excerpts:

As a
global leader and advocate for the achievement of SDG7,
which calls for access to reliable, affordable, sustainable
and modern energy for all by 2030, what three key things do
African countries need to do to end energy
poverty?

One of the first important things,
which countries have started doing, is identifying where the
people who need electrification and clean cooking are. This
will enable countries to identify the best way to provide
these using a range of energy mixes, knowing that cleaner is
better.

The second thing is for countries to make sure
they have solid policies and laws to help attract investment
and to help their own renewable, clean energy
market.

And then finally— and this is more of a
global issue as well as an African countries’ issue—the
financing must be there. So, public financing, private
financing, commercial financing, non-commercial concession
financing, philanthropy money– all need to come together
for us to end energy poverty.

Today, over 700 million
people have no electricity at all. About 2.6 billion people,
almost a third of the global population, do not have access
to clean cooking.

In Africa, 570 million people lack
access to electricity. We are talking about a problem that
will cost us about $40 billion every year from now to 2030.
And right now, in Africa, we are seeing numbers of less than
$4 billion. So, it just shows you how much work we have to
do to make sure the right amount of resources are going in
to solve energy poverty.

So nearly 600 million
Africans do not have access to energy. That is about half of
the population of the continent. How have African countries
fared in the shift toward clean energy? Any good
examples?

There are excellent examples. If I
take my country, Nigeria, for example, I led the largest
energy access programme, which focused on renewable energy
projects under a programme called the Nigerian
Electrification Project. It was undertaken with effective
partnerships with the World Bank and the African Development
Bank. We distributed energy solutions and focused on solar
energy and were able to power some universities.

Some
good examples are also coming out of Rwanda and Senegal as
well. But the problem is that they are small; we now have to
look at scaling up.

It is not that there is no
progress happening in African countries in terms of
electrification, but population growth is outweighing
electrification. So, even if you make progress of an
additional million or 2 million people having energy access
every single year, but you have a population growth of circa
10 million, it’s tough to catch up. That’s why we need to
speed up. And that’s why we need, like I said, money from
philanthropy, development institutions, financial
institutions, governments—all coming together to look for
creative solutions that will make sure no one is left behind
in energy access.

How much progress is being
been made towards rallying financing for the energy sector
in Africa?

It’s important now, especially
this year when the UN is having a high-level dialogue on
energy, for the first time in 40 years. We are discussing
this topic at the UN General Assembly. People are now
recognizing that energy poverty is serious, and it is really
important that while we’re trying to transition to green,
renewable, clean energy, which is very important, that
energy access and energy poverty must be part of the energy
transition for many African countries.

I have a lot of
hope and optimism that this year, there will be a big shift
in terms of a [COVID-19] recovery package and other packages
towards clean energy in Africa, which we haven’t seen
before.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced many
countries’ fiscal space. And Africa is currently grappling
with a third wave of infections. What advice would you give
these countries at this time in terms of how they prioritize
energy investment?

For every $1 you invest in
clean energy in any country, we see the benefits of about
0.93 cents to GDP. So, it’s just a good economic decision.
More jobs are created, and there will be an increase in
energy access and energy efficiency. There are a lot of
benefits, apart from the obvious, including having healthier
people, more yields in agriculture, etc.

And
for women?

If you give a woman access to
sustainable energy, she earns 59% more. So even if you have
a long wish-list of things you want to spend money on, clean
energy is where you should focus because it’s just good math
in terms of economic growth.

The African
Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) kicked off in January
this year, and is expected to catalyze Africa’s
industrialization. How might affordable energy for all, as
well as achieving near-zero emissions, support such
industrialization?

Well, the fact that Africa
is one of the regions that will need more instead of less
energy, especially sub-Saharan Africa, is very key. Again,
let me put this into perspective: the installed capacity of
sub-Saharan Africa, if you take away South Africa, is only
81 gigawatts. That’s the same capacity that Germany
generates. So, it’s 81 gigawatts for more than a billion
people. Sub-Saharan Africa is responsible for less than one
per cent of global emissions, and we want these emissions to
remain low and to continue to be under a low-carbon
trajectory. We would need solar panels, lithium batteries
and inverters. We need a lot of technology. These shouldn’t
be brought from outside to the continent; we should look
towards manufacturing them in Africa to cope with the
demand.

Energy will definitely play a critical part in
the success of Africa’s free trade area.

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