Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the President of Kenya, William Ruto have called for a New Energy Pact for Africa.
Recently, they wrote a commentary that the continent needs a pact because it has to build a sustainable future by increasing energy access for its citizens.
Insights on the New Energy Pact
The New Energy pact aims to foster deeper collaboration between African countries and their international partners to achieve the following goals:
- Accelerate Africa’s unacceptably slow progress toward universal energy access.
- Increase investments in renewables and energy-efficiency improvements in Africa.
- Lay the groundwork for African countries to contribute to emerging clean-energy supply chains.
According to the cited text, the success of the New Energy pact would require African governments to work with international partners to develop more ambitious plans to finance and realize energy projects in Africa while addressing governance, environmental, and labour issues.
According to the cited text, Africa has immense potential that has gone largely untapped, despite being home to 60% of the best solar resources globally.
The text also noted that there is great potential for hydropower, wind, and geothermal power in many African countries, which can play an important role in diversifying and securing the electricity supply on the continent.
Birol and Ruto believe that it is time for Africa to industrialize massively and redefine their manufacturing, refining, and export capacity as well as infrastructure.
Both highlighted the fact that Africa is home to more than 40% of global reserves of cobalt, manganese, and platinum, which are key minerals for batteries and hydrogen fuel cells.
Ruto and Birol called on international financial institutions to mobilize private capital to invest in Africa’s energy industry to secure the continent’s sustainable energy future.
Disturbing stats from the cited textÂ
- Four out of five people in Sub-Saharan Africa still cook with wood and biomass, which, when burned, produces harmful smoke.
- Nearly a half-million premature deaths per year in Sub-Saharan Africa are linked to household air pollution resulting from the lack of access to clean cooking facilities.
- This disproportionately affects women and children, not only in terms of health but also in lost time and lack of opportunity.
- Currently, only about 3% of energy investments worldwide are made in Africa, even though the continent is home to 17% of the world’s population (over 1.2 billion people) – a figure that is expected to double in the next 30 years.
