The 8th President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina has explained that AfDB would invest $12bn over the next five years in support of accelerated electricity supply in Africa and would leverage between $45 to $50m from the private sector.
He disclosed this at the Africa Day in Marrakech, Morocco on the side-line of COP22, organized by African Union (AU) in collaboration with Nigeria and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), with the theme, “Moving from Commitment to Action with the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) and the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI)”.
According to him, “The reason Africa export raw and unprocessed materials is due to lack of electricity which has pushed Africa down to the bottom of global value chains but Africans must power up itself to add value to what it produces, speeding up industrialization and moving to the top of global value chains.
This he said must start by unlocking the huge potentials of energy on the continent including Africa’s vast potentials in renewable energy as well as non- renewable energy saying there is a need for Africa to develop a balanced energy means that would allow it to industrialize.
He noted that lack of electricity drives down Africa’s growth and development saying that Africa had continued to export raw materials for decades that are subject to global community price shocks.
“The bank will work with the African Union and other partners to fast-track the Africa ‘we want’ which must be on Africa, where we will have universal access to electricity within 10 years.
He confirmed that AfDB is highly supportive of Africa’s renewable energy initiative that would unlock Africa’s renewable energy potential to deliver 10 Giga-watts of electricity by 2020 and 300 Giga-watts by 2030.
Adesina stressed that the bank is rapidly building up its institutional capacity to deliver the N-Power African Agenda for Africa adding that African Union approved the Africa Renewable energy initiative.
To drive the action, he noted that the bank appointed a new Vice president for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, Amadou Hott, thereby making the bank the first multilateral development bank to attain the height.
He noted that grid, mini-grid and off-grid systems would play a major role in Africa’s industrialization process
