Last Sunday, I argued in favour of showcasing Africa’s authentic imagery, calling upon commentators to embrace the Africanisation of the future. Even as I argued that case, I understood (still do) the daring challenges facing our dear continent, the world’s most complex place, the birthplace of humanity, yet one whose rich ancestry renders her more impoverished than those she bears! One challenge is the need for access to electricity. Even though Africa has made significant progress in the last seven decades, it remains dark, mirroring its precolonial external assessment by empirical hunters, who, dazzled by its gigantic size, observed that Africa was a dark continent. This proved to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is a possibility, however, that this narrative will soon become history. At the end of the Springs Meetings in Washington later this week, the continent’s leading investors – the World Bank and the African Development Bank – announced a New Deal (here and here) – committing to lighting up Africa with a combined investment budget of 35 billion dollars. As part of this joint project, at least 300 million Africans will be connected to the grid by 2030, a huge step forward for Mother Africa! Africa needs access to electricity. Of the continent’s more than 1.4 million population, most of its young, at least 640 lack access to electricity. That is, 40% of the continent which is widely understood as the youngest in the world. Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) in particular, has a per capita energy consumption of just 180 Kilowatts Per Hour (KWH), the lowest on earth.
Lack of electricity in Africa has direct implications for the continent’s development capabilities: stifles its capacity to conduct business with ease, its school systems are constrained, and infrastructural facilities are more costly than the global average due to high transactional costs emanating from the high cost of electricity (and lack of it thereof). This presents challenges to its socioeconomic development, particularly its industrialisation ambitions.
As argued by the African Development Bank’s President, Akinwumi Adesina in his New Deal Remarks, ‘No economy can industrialise in the Dark, and no economy that can be competitive in the dark.’ In his view, ‘Africa is simply tired of being in the dark.’ His counterpart, the World Bank’s President Ajay Banga, an Ex-Mastercard Chief Executive shares his enthusiasm. In Mr. Banga’s words, connecting Africa to the grid extends beyond industrialisation concerns, it is a question of a ‘basic human right’ because as Banga reveals, ‘it is hard to get people productive if you don’t give them access to electricity.’
The Banks’ Presidents are right. Industrialisation and human productivity are contingent on an electrified economy. The industrial revolution happened because of the steam engine! Africa’s growth would not be different. It requires electricity to industrialise and be productive. Oh no, it will be. According to the New Deal, the focus will be on the so-called ‘cleaner and safer sources of power – known entrepreneurially as ‘renewables.’ Although we still have more questions regarding their renewability, and the often-unannounced costs accompanying their usage.
On their part, the Banks speak of the urgency of employing ‘renewable energy’ to light up Africa. The African Development Bank in particular speaks of ‘providing 150 million households with access to clean cooking solutions’ by 2025! Yet the cost of renewables in Africa is already out of reach, let alone the technical details – including the African government’s inaccessibility to or their (un)willingness to commit dwindling public finances to the lighting project.
Coupled with the continent’s competitive (dis)advantage in climate financing, the new deal might never work according to the plan. According to Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari in this Op-Ed written two years ago, Africa’s energy needs are so many that it does not simply make sense to talk the continent into the so-called renewable power. In his words, ‘current energy demands cannot yet be met solely through weather-dependent solar and wind power.’ In the President’s rationale, fossil fuels can.
Nonetheless, it appears, just like all other development projects, the New Deal will yet be financed by the rich who often decide how the rest develop – including the imperative to abandon their dirty riches underneath the earth. Meanwhile, the World Bank expects its concessional arm, the International Development Association (IDA) to put the bill, lending out to the first African applicants who, desperate to light up their dark cities, will take up the loans as they did during the 80s and the 90s.
Will the New Deal make a difference? Is it better than what we already have? I have no immediate answers but current readers might find this opinion useful in which Tod Moss, an energy poverty commentator, reflects upon the Deal through his Three Big Questions. For me, I am excited, (cautiously I should add) about this but time will tell.
Matai Muon 