‘Imagine life without electricity’, says an article published few years ago and details the critical importance of electricity in bettering the lives of citizens and advancing countries’ development. Unarguably, energy is a crucial element which plays central role in economic development. Particularly, in a situation where industrialization involves, the demand and consumption for energy is huge.
Thus, provision of access to energy is crucial to economic growth and betterment the lives of citizens. However, as sources indicate, Africa though has enjoyed major economic gains over the past few decades, some of its populations, particularly, those residing in the rural areas, still have no access to electricity and African governments could not satisfy their peoples’ energy demand at the desired level. According to Vera Songwe Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, energy is at the heart of development and access to electricity would lift productivity within and across sectors.
Africa unless it could not satisfy the electricity demands of its hundreds of millions citizens and if the people continued to live without electricity, the continent will not fully develop. Addressing a Res4 Africa business-to-government high level workshop on accelerating the renewable energy transition held recently in Addis Ababa, the Executive Secretary said: “Right now the Continent is moving towards the game-changing African Continental Free Trade Agreement where collectively we can wield the strength of the African continent better than we can individually by trading more with each other but the AfCFTA requires production
which requires energy.” For instance, the ECA Chief said, nearly 600 million, or 48 percent of Africa’s population, still lack access to electricity, with the majority living in rural areas. It is projected that roughly the same number of people will not have access by 2030.
“This is the case despite the fact that there was additional electricity access to 26 million Africans between 2012 and 2016,” said Ms. Songwe, adding it was disheartening that nearly 848 million, or 72 percent of Africa’s population lack clean cooking solutions with 90 percent or more relying on biomass for heat energy. Innovation on the ground, she said, so far is encouraging, though the pace needs to pick up as the continent tries to address its power challenges.
Boosting access to electricity through innovation and better regulation is crucial, as she remarked. “Africa has to act fast and now to increase the number of people with access to electricity. We have to quadruple our efforts on energy if we are to achieve the sustainable development goals and Agenda 2063. Without energy we cannot have the development that we so yearn for,” said Ms. Songwe. According to her, to curb the challenges, African governments should enact policies and regulations that can quickly enhance the enabling environment for deployment of renewable energy programs in Africa and make it easy for the private sector to play its role in helping accelerate the energy transition on the continent, Water, Irrigation and Energy State Minister Frehiwot Woldehanna, for his part said that Ethiopia is endeavoring to increase the number of people with access to electricity.
This includes five new hydro and solar projects that were approved end of 2019, and the new tariff system he said aims to expand access by all to power. In line with the government’s climate resilient Green Economy Strategy, harnessing renewable energy resources was top priority, he said. “We cannot continue to have a situation where our women and girls spend most of their productive time fetching firewood and water,” Minister Frehiwot said, adding the country had made significant gains in its efforts to address power shortages. Roberto Vigotti, Secretary General of Res 4 Africa, emphasized the importance of accelerating the renewable energy transition not only in Ethiopia but Africa as a whole. RES4Africa contributes to building sustainable energy partnerships on the continent with a “bottom up” approach able to propose solutions customized to local contexts.
The organization encourages the setting-up of partnership formulas aiming to provide decision makers with the viewpoint of the private sector and in the process stimulating investment opportunities. Lack of sufficient power generation capacity, poor transmission and distribution infrastructure, high costs of supply to remote areas, or simply a lack of affordability for electricity, are among the biggest hurdles for affecting Africa’s desire to extend grid-based electricity.
Herald March 20/2019
BY STAFF REPORTER
