Africa Investment Forum update: Experts discuss on rising energy demand, developing investment

The experts at the ongoing 2019 Africa Investment Forum believe that Africa has the potential to expand the continental economy fourfold, with energy demands expanding by only 50 percent. The International Energy Agency unveiled its report on the first day of the second African Investment Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Africa Energy Outlook 2019 found that the African continent’s future energy prospects look bright, but only if Governments can make the shift to more renewable energy sources. The report says there are three factors that will determine the continent’s future energy consumption – its growing population, the rapid increase in urbanisation and industrialisation.

Kieran McNamara, an analyst at IEA, noted at the Africa Investment Forum that these will have “profound effects on Africa’s energy mix and how the economy develops.”

The International Energy Agency has for the first time conducted detailed modelling of the energy mix for 11 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, namely Angola, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Nigeria and Senegal.

About 600-million Africans have no access to electricity, although this has improved since 2013, according to IEA’s analysis. “In order to start to address the problem, we have to realize the scale of the emergency. And that data is extremely important. You have to be able to define the problem before you can actually address it,” Wale Shonibare, Acting Vice President of Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth opined. If countries on the continent do not change current policies on energy use, Africa will not achieve the African Development Bank’s target of universal electricity by 2030. Africa also needs to radically increase its investment in power generation from the current USD 30 billion to USD 120 billion by 2040, if it is to achieve universal access to electricity, according to Tae-Yoon Kim, another analyst at IEA.

On the other hand, the economists at the Africa Investment Forum made collective proposal during the session titled ‘Reshaping the narrative on Africa’ to improve investors on their continent. The proposal was made in the presence of Pravin Gordhan, South African Minister of Public Enterprises, Amadou Hott, Minister of Economy, Planning and Development. Senegal cooperation, Alain Ebobissé, Africa50 Managing Director, Rakesh Wahi, founder of ABN Group, Lolu Akinwinmi, President of Prima Garnet Communications.

Amadou Hott said that the policies must highlight positive initiatives on the continent. “We must use this Forum to sell Africa. For example, we have Accra Airport, Ghana, we have road and rail projects in Senegal. Yet who knows the role played by the African Development Bank? We have the African Continental Free Trade Area: do we sell it to the world? The Bank must facilitate a better knowledge of Africa,” Hott said.

“Today, Africa is little known,” said Gordhan. We must act against this state of affairs. Many investors have taken risks by coming to the continent, others not. To encourage them, we must improve our communication, fight against the assumptions and show that we are a continent that matters.

“If we have to sell the Africa brand, we have to define what will be our narrative mode,” Lolu Akinwinmi cited. We need to know how to communicate to the rest of the world to be attractive and with what messages to reach our goal? All that was said about Africa did not come from us. We must change that. There are many positive things to tell, and we must allow Africa to tell its own story. “The African middle class is growing, Africans are traveling regularly, "this must be part of the new brand of the continent,” he argued.

Alain Ebobissé supported a more global approach. “We have success stories in Egypt and South Africa that generate millions of dollars. We must put forward the positive. Let’s try to take advantage of the momentum of these successes. Let’s multiply the examples, this is how we will change the way investors look at Africa.”